Chapter XXXI…

Chapter XXXI

THE AUTHOR LEAVES LIVERPOOL TO JOIN THE ALABAMA--ARRIVAL AT TERCEIRA--DESCRIPTION OF THE ALABAMA--PREPARING HER FOR SEA--THE PORTUGUESE AUTHORITIES--THE COMMISSIONING OF THE SHIP--A PICTURE OF HER BIRTH AND DEATH--CAPTAIN BULLOCK RETURNS TO ENGLAND--AUTHOR ALONE ON THE HIGH SEAS.

Having cleared the way, in the last two chapters, for the cruise of the Alabama, by removing some of the legal rubbish with which Mr. Seward and Mr. Adams had sought to encumber her, we are in a condition to put the ship in commission. I was at last accounts in Liverpool, as the reader will recollect, having just arrived there in the steamer Bahama, from Nassau. The Alabama, then known as the "290," had proceeded, a few days before, to her rendezvous, the island of Terceira, one of the group of the Azores. The name "290" may need a word of explanation. The newspapers of the enemy have falsely charged that the Alabama was built by 290 Englishmen, of "rebel" proclivities, and hence, they say, the name.

One Parson Boynton has written a book, which he calls the "History of the Navy," but which is rather a biography of Mr. Secretary Welles, his Assistant Secretary Fox, and several ingenious mechanics. Judging by this attempt, parsons are rather bad hands to write histories. Speaking of the Alabama, this gentleman remarks: "Insultingly, this vessel was named '290,' to show, by the large number that contributed to fit her out, how widespread was the English sympathy for the rebel cause. The Alabama was not regarded as a rebel vessel of war, but as a British pirate, or rather, perhaps, as an English man-of-war, sent forth under the veil of the rebel flag, to sink and destroy our merchantmen." It is thus seen, that this history repeats the stale newspaper slander. Of such stuff the Yankee histories of the war, generally, are made, especially such of them as are written by amateur parsons. The fact is, as the reader has seen, that the Alabama was built by the Messrs. Laird of Birkenhead, under a contract with the Confederate States, and was paid for out of the Confederate Treasury. She happened to be the 290th ship built by those gentlemen, and hence the name.

The Alabama had been built in perfect good faith by the Lairds. When she was contracted for, no question had been raised as to the right of a neutral to build, and sell to a belligerent such a ship. The reader has seen that the Federal Secretary of the Navy himself had endeavored, not only to build an Alabama, but iron-clads in England. But as the war progressed, the United States, foreseeing the damage which a few fast steamers might inflict on their commerce, took the alarm, and began to insist that neutrals should not supply us, even with unarmed ships. The laws of nations were clearly against them. Their own practice, in all former wars, in which they had been neutrals, was against them. And yet they maintained their ground so stoutly and defiantly, threatening war, if they were not listened to, that the neutral powers, and especially Great Britain, became very cautious. They were indeed bullied--for that is the word--into timidity. To show the good faith which the Lairds had practised throughout, I quote again from the speech made by the senior partner, in the House of Commons:--

"I can only say from all I know, and from all I have heard, that from the day the vessel was laid down, to her completion everything was open and above board, in this country. I also further say, that the officers of the Government had every facility afforded them for inspecting the ship, during the progress of building. When the officers came to the builders, they were shown the ship, and day after day, the customs officers were on board, as they were when she finally left, and they declared that there was nothing wrong. They only left her when the tug left, and they were obliged to declare, that she left Liverpool a perfectly legitimate transaction."

Notwithstanding this practice of good faith, on our part, and our entire innocence of any breach of the laws of nations, or of the British Foreign Enlistment Act, Lord John Russell had been intimidated to such an extent, that the ship came within an ace of being detained. But for the little ruse which we practised, of going on a trial-trip, with a party of ladies, and the customs officers, mentioned by Mr. Laird, on board, and not returning, but sending our guests back in a tug, there is no doubt that the Alabama would have been tied up, as the Oreto or Florida had been, in court. She must have been finally released, it is true, but the delay itself would have been of serious detriment to us.

After a few busy days in Liverpool, during which I was gathering my old officers of the Sumter around me, and making my financial arrangements for my cruise, with the house of Frazer, Trenholm & Co., I departed on the 13th of August, 1862, in the steamer Bahama, to join the Alabama. Captain James D. Bullock, of the Confederate States Navy, a Georgian, who had been bred in the old service, but who had retired from it some years before the war, to engage in the steam-packet service, accompanied me. Bullock had contracted for, and superintended the building of the Alabama, and was now going with me, to be present at the christening of his bantling. I am indebted to him, as well the Messrs. Laird, for a very perfect ship of her class.

She was of about 900 tons burden, 230 feet in length, 32 feet in breadth, 20 feet in depth, and drew, when provisioned and coaled for a cruise, 15 feet of water. Her model was of the most perfect symmetry, and she sat upon the water with the lightness and grace of a swan. She was barkentine rigged, with long lower masts, which enabled her to carry large fore-and-aft sails, as jibs and try-sails, which are of so much importance to a steamer, in so many emergencies. Her sticks were of the best yellow pine, that would bend in a gale, like a willow wand, without breaking, and her rigging was of the best of Swedish iron wire. The scantling of the vessel was light, compared with vessels of her class in the Federal Navy, but this was scarcely a disadvantage, as she was designed as a scourge of the enemy's commerce, rather than for battle. She was to defend herself, simply, if defence should become necessary. Her engine was of three hundred horse-power, and she had attached an apparatus for condensing, from the vapor of sea-water, all the fresh water that her crew might require. She was a perfect steamer and a perfect sailing-ship, at the same time, neither of her two modes of locomotion being at all dependent upon the other. The reader has seen that the Sumter, when her fuel was exhausted, was little better than a log on the water, because of her inability to hoist her propeller, which she was, in consequence, compelled to drag after her. The Alabama was so constructed, that in fifteen minutes, her propeller could be detached from the shaft, and lifted in a well contrived for the purpose, sufficiently high out of the water, not to be an impediment to her speed. When this was done, and her sails spread, she was, to all intents and purposes, a sailing-ship. On the other hand, when I desired to use her as a steamer, I had only to start the fires, lower the propeller, and if the wind was adverse, brace her yards to the wind, and the conversion was complete. The speed of the Alabama was always greatly over-rated by the enemy. She was ordinarily about a ten-knot ship. She was said to have made eleven knots and a half, on her trial trip, but we never afterward got it out of her. Under steam and sail both, we logged on one occasion, thirteen knots and a quarter, which was her utmost speed.

Her armament consisted of eight guns; six 32-pounders, in broadside, and two pivot-guns amidships; one on the forecastle, and the other abaft the main-mast--the former a 100-pounder rifled Blakeley, and the latter, a smooth-bore eight-inch. The Blakeley gun was so deficient in metal, compared with the weight of shot it threw, that, after the first few discharges, when it became a little heated, it was of comparatively small use to us, to such an extent were we obliged to reduce the charge of powder, on account of the recoil. The average crew of the Alabama, before the mast, was about 120 men; and she carried twenty-four officers, as follows: A Captain, four lieutenants, surgeon, paymaster, master, marine officer, four engineers, two midshipmen, and four master's mates, a Captain's clerk, boatswain, gunner, sailmaker, and carpenter. The cost of the ship, with everything complete, was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

On the morning of our departure from Liverpool, the Bahama had dropped some distance down the Mersey, and we joined her by tug. She had her steam up, and was ready to trip her anchor, the moment we arrived, and in a few minutes after getting on board, we were under way. The tug cheered us, as she turned to steam back to the city, and the cheer was answered lustily by our crew. We were a week on the passage from Liverpool to Terceira; our old friend, Captain Tessier, of the Bahama, with whom I had made the passage from Nassau to Liverpool, rendering our time very comfortable. On the morning of the 20th of August, we were on the look-out, at an early hour, for the land, and it was not long before we discovered the island, looking, at first, hazy and indistinct in the distance, but gradually assuming more form and consistency. After another hour's steaming, Porto Praya, our place of rendezvous, became visible, with its white houses dotting the mountain side, and we now began to turn our glasses upon the harbor, with no little anxiety, to see if our ships--for a sailing-ship, with the Alabama's battery and stores, had preceded her some days, and should now be with her--were all right. We first caught sight of their spars, and pretty soon, raising their hulls sufficiently for identification, we felt much relieved. Our secret had been well kept, and the enemy, notwithstanding his fine "smelling qualities," had not scented the prey.

In the meantime, our own approach was watched with equal anxiety from the deck of the Alabama. We might be, for aught she knew, an enemy's steamer coming in pursuit of her; and as the enemy was in the habit of kicking all the small powers, that had not the means of kicking back, a neutral port, belonging to effete old Portugal, would not afford her the least protection. At half-past eleven A. M., we steamed into the harbor, and let go our anchor. I had surveyed my new ship, as we approached, with no little interest, as she was to be not only my home, but my bride, as it were, for the next few years, and I was quite satisfied with her external appearance. She was, indeed, a beautiful thing to look upon. The store-ship was already alongside of her, and we could see that the busy work of transferring her cargo was going on. Captain Butcher, an intelligent young English seaman, who had been bred in the mail-packet service, and who had taken the Alabama out from Liverpool, on that trial trip of hers, which has since become historical through the protests of Messrs. Seward and Adams, now came on board of us. He had had a rough and stormy passage from Liverpool, during which he had suffered some little damage, and consumed most of his coal. Considerable progress had been made, in receiving on board from the transport, the battery and stores, and a few days more would suffice to put the ship in a condition for defence.

The harbor of Porto Praya lies open to the eastward, and as the wind was now from that quarter, and blowing rather freshly, a considerable sea had been raised, which rendered it inconvenient, if not unsafe, for the transport and the Alabama to continue to lie alongside of each other; which was nevertheless necessary for the transfer of the remainder of the heavy guns. I therefore directed Captain Butcher to get up his anchors immediately, and follow me around to Angra Bay, on the west side of the island, where we should find a lee, and smooth water. This was done, and we arrived at Angra at four o'clock, on the same afternoon. Here the transshipment of the guns and stores was renewed, and here, for the first time, I visited the Alabama. I was as much pleased with her internal appearance, and arrangements, as I had been with her externally, but everything was in a very uninviting state of confusion, guns, gun-carriages, shot, and shell, barrels of beef and pork, and boxes and bales of paymaster's, gunner's, and boatswain's stores lying promiscuously about the decks; sufficient time not having elapsed to have them stowed in their proper places. The crew, comprising about sixty persons, who had been picked up, promiscuously, about the streets of Liverpool, were as unpromising in appearance, as things about the decks. What with faces begrimed with coal dust, red shirts, and blue shirts, Scotch caps, and hats, brawny chests exposed, and stalwart arms naked to the elbows, they looked as little like the crew of a man-of-war, as one can well conceive. Still there was some physique among these fellows, and soap, and water, and clean shirts would make a wonderful difference in their appearance. As night approached, I relieved Captain Butcher of his command, and removing my baggage on board, took possession of the cabin, in which I was to spend so many weary days, and watchful nights. I am a good sleeper, and slept soundly. This quality of sleeping well in the intervals of harassing business is a valuable one to the sailor, and I owe to it much of that physical ability, which enabled me to withstand the four years of excitement and toil, to which I was subjected during the war.

There are two harbors called Angra, in Terceira--East Angra, and West Angra. We were anchored in the latter, and the authorities notified us, the next morning, that we must move round to East Angra, that being the port of entry, and the proper place for the anchorage of merchant-ships. We were playing merchant-ship as yet, but had nothing to do, of course, with ports of entry or custom-houses; and as the day was fine, and there was a prospect of smooth water under the lee of the island, I got under way, and went to sea, the Bahama and the transport accompanying me. Steaming beyond the marine league, I hauled the transport alongside, and we got on board from her the remainder of our armament, and stores. The sea was not so smooth, as we had expected, and there was some little chafing between the ships, but we accomplished our object, without serious inconvenience. This occupied us all day, and after nightfall, we ran into East Angra, and anchored.

As we passed the fort, we were hailed vociferously, in very bad English, or Portuguese, we could not distinguish which. But though the words were unintelligible to us, the manner and tone of the hail were evidently meant to warn us off. Continuing our course, and paying no attention to the hail, the fort presently fired a shot over us; but we paid no attention to this either, and ran in and anchored--the bark accompanying us, but the Bahama hauling off, seaward, and lying off and on during the night. There was a small Portuguese schooner of war at anchor in the harbor, and about midnight, I was aroused from a deep sleep, into which I had fallen, after a long day of work and excitement, by an officer coming below, and informing me, very coolly, that the Portuguese man-of-war was firing into us! "The d----l she is," said I; "how many shots has she fired at us?" "Three, sir," replied the officer. "Have any of them struck us?" "No, sir, none of them have struck us--they seem to be firing rather wild." I knew very well, that the little craft would not dare to fire into us, though I thought it probable, that, after the fashion of the Chinese, who sound their gongs to scare away their enemies, she might be firing at us, to alarm us into going out of the harbor. I said therefore to the officer, "Let him fire away, I expect he won't hurt you," and turned over and went to sleep. In the morning, it was ascertained, that it was not the schooner at all, that had been firing, but a passing mail steamer which had run into the anchorage, and fired three signal guns, to awaken her sleeping passengers on shore--with whom she departed before daylight.

We were not further molested, from this time onward, but were permitted to remain and coal from the bark; though the custom-house officers, accompanied by the British Consul, paid us a visit, and insisted that we should suspend our operation of coaling, until we had entered the two ships at the custom-house. This I readily consented to do. I now called the Bahama in, by signal, and she ran in and anchored near us. Whilst the coaling was going forward, the carpenter, and gunner, with the assistance of the chief engineer, were busy putting down the circles or traverses for the pivot guns; and the boatswain and his gang were at work, fitting side and train tackles for the broadside guns. The reader can understand how anxious I was to complete all these arrangements. I was perfectly defenceless without them, and did not know at what moment an enemy's ship might look in upon me. The harbor of East Angra, where we were now anchored, was quite open, but fortunately for us, the wind was light, and from the S. W., which gave us smooth water, and our work went on quite rapidly.

To cast an eye, for a moment, now, from the ship to the shore, I was charmed with the appearance of Terceira. Every square foot of the island seemed to be under the most elaborate cultivation, and snug farm-houses were dotted so thickly over the hill-sides, as to give the whole the appearance of a rambling village. The markets were most bountifully supplied with excellent beef and mutton, and the various domestic fowls, fish, vegetables, and fruits. My steward brought off every morning in his basket, a most tempting assortment of the latter; for there were apples, plums, pears, figs, dates, oranges, and melons all in full bearing at Terceira. The little town of Angra, abreast of which we were anchored, was a perfect picture of a Portuguese-Moorish town, with its red-tiled roofs, sharp gables, and parti-colored verandas, and veranda curtains. And then the quiet, and love-in-a-cottage air which hovered over the whole scene, so far removed from the highways of the world's commerce, and the world's alarms, was charming to contemplate.

I had arrived on Wednesday, and on Saturday night, we had, by the dint of great labor and perseverance, drawn order out of chaos. The Alabama's battery was on board, and in place, her stores had all been unpacked, and distributed to the different departments, and her coal-bunkers were again full. We only awaited the following morning to steam out upon the high seas, and formally put the ship in commission. Saturday had been dark and rainy, but we had still labored on through the rain. Sunday morning dawned bright and beautiful, which we hailed as a harbinger of future success. All hands were turned out at early daylight, and the first lieutenant, and the officer of the deck took the ship in hand, to prepare her for the coming ceremony. She was covered with coal dust and dirt and rubbish in every direction, for we had hitherto had no time to attend to appearances. But by dint of a few hours of scrubbing, inside and out, and of the use of that well-known domestic implement, the holy-stone, that works so many wonders with a dirty ship, she became sweet and clean, and when her awnings were snugly spread, her yards squared, and her rigging hauled taut, she looked like a bride, with the orange-wreath about her brows, ready to be led to the altar.

I had as yet no enlisted crew, and this thought gave me some anxiety. All the men on board the Alabama, as well as those who had come out with me, on board the Bahama, had been brought thus far, under articles of agreement that were to be no longer obligatory. Some of them had been shipped for one voyage, and some for another, but none of them for service on board a Confederate cruiser. This was done to avoid a breach of the British Foreign Enlistment Act. They had, of course, been undeceived from the day of our departure from Liverpool. They knew that they were to be released from the contracts they had made, but I could not know how many of them would engage with me for the Alabama. It is true I had had a talk with some of the leaders of the crew, who had promised to go with me, and to influence others, but no creature can be more whimsical than a sailor, until you have bound him past recall, unless indeed it be a woman.

The ship having been properly prepared, we steamed out, on this bright Sunday morning, under a cloudless sky, with a gentle breeze from the southeast, scarcely ruffling the surface of the placid sea, and under the shadow of the smiling and picturesque island of Terceira, which nature seemed to have decked specially for the occasion, so charming did it appear, in its checkered dress of a lighter and darker green, composed of corn-fields and orange-groves, the flag of the new-born Confederate States was unfurled, for the first time, from the peak of the Alabama. The Bahama accompanied us. The ceremony was short but impressive. The officers were all in full uniform, and the crew neatly dressed, and I caused "all hands" to be summoned aft on the quarter-deck, and mounting a gun-carriage, I read the commission of Mr. Jefferson Davis, appointing me a captain in the Confederate States Navy, and the order of Mr. Stephen R. Mallory, the Secretary of the Navy, directing me to assume command of the Alabama. Following my example, the officers and crew had all uncovered their heads, in deference to the sovereign authority, as is customary on such occasions; and as they stood in respectful silence and listened with rapt attention to the reading, and to the short explanation of my object and purposes, in putting the ship in commission which followed, I was deeply impressed with the spectacle. Virginia, the grand old mother of many of the States, who afterward died so nobly; South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana, were all represented in the persons of my officers, and I had some of as fine specimens of the daring and adventurous seaman, as any ship of war could boast.

While the reading was going on, two small balls might have been seen ascending slowly, one to the peak, and the other to the main-royal mast-head. These were the ensign and pennant of the future man-of-war. These balls were so arranged, that by a sudden jerk of the halliards by which they had been sent aloft, the flag and pennant would unfold themselves to the breeze. A curious observer would also have seen a quartermaster standing by the English colors, which we were still wearing, in readiness to strike them, a band of music on the quarter-deck, and a gunner (lock-string in hand) standing by the weather-bow gun. All these men had their eyes upon the reader; and when he had concluded, at a wave of his hand, the gun was fired, the change of flags took place, and the air was rent by a deafening cheer from officers and men; the band, at the same time, playing "Dixie,"--that soul-stirring national anthem of the new-born government. The Bahama also fired a gun and cheered the new flag. Thus, amid this peaceful scene of beauty, with all nature smiling upon the ceremony, was the Alabama christened; the name "290" disappearing with the English flag. This had all been done upon the high seas, more than a marine league from the land, where Mr. Jefferson Davis had as much jurisdiction as Mr. Abraham Lincoln. Who could look into the horoscope of this ship--who anticipate her career? Many of these brave fellows followed me unto the close.

From the cradle to the grave there is but a step; and that I may group in a single picture, the christening and the burial of the ship, let the reader imagine, now, some two years to have rolled over--and such a two years of carnage and blood, as the world had never before seen--and, strangely enough, another Sunday morning, equally bright and beautiful, to have dawned upon the Alabama. This is her funeral morning! At the hour when the church-goers in Paris and London were sending up their orisons to the Most High, the sound of cannon was heard in the British Channel, and the Alabama was engaged in her death-struggle. Cherbourg, where the Alabama had lain for some days previously, is connected with Paris by rail, and a large number of curious spectators had flocked down from the latter city to witness, as it proved, her interment. The sun rose, as before, in a cloudless sky, and the sea-breeze has come in over the dancing waters, mild and balmy. It is the nineteenth day of June, 1864. The Alabama steams out to meet the Kearsarge in mortal combat, and before the sun has set, she has gone down beneath the green waters, and lies entombed by the side of many a gallant craft that had gone down before her in that famous old British Channel; where, from the time of the Norseman and the Danish sea-king, to our own day, so many naval combats have been fought, and so many of the laurel crowns of victory have been entwined around the brows of our naval ancestors. Many of the manly figures who had stood with uncovered heads, and listened with respectful silence to the christening, went down in the ship, and now lie buried with her, many fathoms deep, with no other funeral dirge than the roar of cannon, and the howling winds of the North Sea. Such were the birth and death of the ship, whose adventures I propose to sketch in the following pages.

My speech, I was glad to find, had produced considerable effect with the crew. I informed them, in the opening, that they were all released from the contracts under which they had come thus far, and that such of them as preferred to return to England could do so in the Bahama, without prejudice to their interests, as they would have a free passage back, and their pay would go on until they were discharged in Liverpool. I then gave them a brief account of the war, and told them how the Southern States, being sovereign and independent, had dissolved the league which had bound them to the Northern States, and how they were threatened with subjugation by their late confederates, who were the stronger. They would be fighting, I told them, the battles of the oppressed against the oppressor, and this consideration alone should be enough to nerve the arm of every generous sailor. Coming nearer home, for it could not be supposed that English, Dutch, Irish, French, Italian, and Spanish sailors could understand much about the rights or wrongs of nations, I explained to them the individual advantages which they might expect to reap from an enlistment with me. The cruise would be one of excitement and adventure. We had a fine ship under us; one that they might fall in love with, as they would with their sweethearts about Wapping. We should visit many parts of the world, where they would have "liberty" given them on proper occasions; and we should, no doubt, destroy a great many of the enemy's ships, in spite of the enemy's cruisers. With regard to these last, though fighting was not to be our principal object, yet, if a favorable opportunity should offer of our laying ourselves alongside of a ship that was not too heavy for us, they would find me disposed to indulge them.

Finally I came to the finances, and like a skilful Secretary of the Treasury, I put the budget to them, in its very best aspect. As I spoke of good pay, and payment in gold, "hear! hear!" came up from several voices. I would give them, I said, about double the ordinary wages, to compensate them for the risks they would have to run, and I promised them, in case we should be successful, "lots of prize-money," to be voted to them by the Confederate Congress, for the ships of the enemy that they would be obliged to destroy. When we "piped down," that is to say, when the boatswain and his mates wound their "calls" three times, as a signal that the meeting was over, and the crew might disperse, I caused the word to be passed for all those who desired to sign the articles, to repair at once to the paymaster and sign. I was anxious to strike whilst the iron was hot. The Alabama had brought out from the Mersey about sixty men, and the Bahama had brought about thirty more. I got eighty of these ninety men, and felt very much relieved in consequence.

The democratic part of the proceedings closed, as soon as the articles were signed. The "public meeting" just described, was the first, and last ever held on board the Alabama, and no other stump speech was ever made to the crew. When I wanted a man to do anything after this, I did not talk to him about "nationalities," or "liberties," or "double wages," but I gave him a rather sharp order, and if the order was not obeyed in "double-quick," the delinquent found himself in limbo. Democracies may do very well for the land, but monarchies and pretty absolute monarchies at that, are the only successful governments for the sea. There was a great state of confusion on board the ship, of course, during the remainder of this day, and well into the night. Bullock and Butcher were both on board assisting me, and we were all busy, as well as the paymaster and clerk, making out half-pay tickets for the sailors' wives and sweethearts, drawing drafts for small amounts payable to relatives and dependants, in different parts of England, for such of the sailors as wanted them, and paying advance-wages to those who had no pay-tickets to leave, or remittances to make. I was gratified to find, that a large proportion of my men left half their pay behind them. "A man, who has children, hath given hostages to fortune," and you are quite as sure of a sailor, who sends half his pay to his wife or sweetheart.

It was eleven P. M. before my friend Bullock was ready to return to the Bahama, on his way back to England. I took an affectionate leave of him. I had spent some days with him, at his quiet retreat, in the little village of Waterloo, near Liverpool, where I met his excellent wife, a charming Southern woman, with whom hospitality was a part of her religious faith. He was living in a very plain, simple style, though large sums of public money were passing through his hands, and he has had the honor to come out of the war poor. He paid out moneys in good faith, to the last, even when it was quite evident that the cause had gone under, and there would be no accounts to settle with an Auditor of the Treasury. I had not only had the pleasure of his society during a number of anxious days, but he had greatly assisted me, by his counsel and advice, given with that modesty and reserve which always mark true ability. As soon as the Bahama had steamed away, and left me alone, I turned my ship's head to the north-east, set the fore-and-aft sails, and directed the engineer to let his fires go down. The wind had freshened considerably, and there was some sea on. I now turned into an unquiet cot, perfectly exhausted, after the labors of the day, and slept as comfortably as the rolling of the ship, and a strong smell of bilge-water would permit.

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Chapter XXXII

THE ALABAMA A SHIP OF WAR, AND NOT A PRIVATEER--SKETCH OF THE PERSONNEL OF THE SHIP--PUTTING THE SHIP IN ORDER FOR SERVICE--SAIL AND STEAM--THE CHARACTER OF THE SAILOR--THE FIRST BLOW STRUCK AT THE WHALE FISHERY--THE HABITAT AND HABITS OF THE WHALE--THE FIRST CAPTURE.

The reader has seen in the last chapter, that the Alabama is at length upon the high seas, as a commissioned ship of war of the Confederate States, her commission having been signed by Mr. Jefferson Davis, who had all the de facto right, and much more of the de jure right, to sign such a commission than John Hancock, who signed Paul Jones' commission. The Alabama having been built by the Government of the Confederate States, and commissioned by these States, as a ship of war, was, in no sense of the word, a privateer, which is a private armed ship belonging to individuals, and fitted out for purposes of gain. And yet, throughout the whole war, and long after the war, when she was not called a "pirate" by the Northern press, she was called a privateer. Even high Government officials of the enemy so characterized her. Many of the newspapers erred through ignorance, but this misnomer was sheer malice, and very petty malice, too, on the part of those of them who were better informed, and on the part of the Government officials, all of whom, of course, knew better. Long after they had acknowledged the war, as a war, which carried with it an acknowledgment of the right of the Confederate States to fit out cruisers, they stultified themselves by calling her "pirate," and "privateer." They were afraid to speak the truth, in conformity with the facts, lest the destruction of their property, for which they hoped ultimately to be paid, should seem to be admitted to have been done under the sanction of the laws of nations. They could as logically have called General Robert E. Lee a bandit, as myself a pirate; but logic was not the forte of the enemy, either during or since the late war.

Before we commence operations, a glance at the personnel of the ship may not be uninteresting. If the reader is to embark on the cruise with us, he will very naturally desire to know something of his future shipmates. Having made the cruise in the Sumter, he is, of course, acquainted with the officers of that ship, and if, after the fashion of the sailor, he has formed a liking for any of them, he will naturally be inclined to know what became of such of them as did not follow me to the Alabama. Of the lieutenants, only one of my old set followed me. Accident separated the rest from me, very much to my regret, and we afterward played different roles in the war. The reader has not forgotten Chapman, the second officer of the Sumter, who made such a sensation in Cienfuegos, among the fair sex, and who slept in such a sweet pair of sheets at the house of his friend, that he dreamed of them for weeks afterward. Chapman finished the cruise in the Sumter, serving everybody else pretty much as he served the Cienfuegos people, whenever he chanced to get ashore. He was always as ready "to tread one measure--take one cup of wine," with a friend, as to hurl defiance at an enemy. He carried the garrison mess at Gibraltar by storm. There was no dinner-party without him. He talked war and strategy with the colonel, fox-hunted with the major, and thrumbed the light guitar, and sang delightful songs, in company with the young captains, and lieutenants, beneath the latticed windows of their lady-loves. It is astonishing, too, the progress he made in learning Spanish, which was attributable entirely to the lessons he took from some bright eyes, and musical tongues, in the neighboring village of San Roque, only a pleasant canter over into Spain, from Gibraltar. Chapman was, unfortunately, going from London to Nassau, in a blockade runner, while I was returning from the latter place to Liverpool, preparatory to joining the Alabama. It was thus we missed each other; and the Alabama was on the wing so soon afterward, that it was impossible for him to catch her. He served in the Georgia, a while, under Captain William Lewis Maury, and, when that ship was laid up and sold, he returned to the Confederate States, and rendered gallant and efficient service, in the last days of the war, in doing what was possible for the defence of Wilmington, against the overwhelming fleet of Porter.

Stribling, the third of the Sumter, was assigned by me to Maffitt's command, as already related. He died of yellow fever in Mobile, deeply regretted by the whole service.

Evans, the fourth of the Sumter, missed me as Chapman had done, and like Chapman, he took service on board the Georgia, and afterward returned to the Confederate States. He served in the naval batteries on the James River, until the evacuation of Richmond.

I took with me to the Alabama, as the reader has seen, my old and well-tried First Lieutenant, Kell. He became the first lieutenant of the new ship.

Lieutenant Richard F. Armstrong, of Georgia, whom, as the reader will recollect, I had left at Gibraltar, in charge of the Sumter, took Chapman's place, and became second lieutenant. Armstrong was a young gentleman of intelligence and character, and had made good progress in his profession. He was a midshipman at the Naval School, at Annapolis, when the war broke out. Though still a mere boy, he resigned his appointment without hesitation, and came South. He had made the cruise with me in the Sumter, and been since promoted.

Midshipman Joseph D. Wilson, of Florida, also an eleve of Annapolis, and who, like Armstrong, had made the cruise with me in the Sumter, and been promoted, took Stribling's place, and became third lieutenant.

My fourth lieutenant in place of Evans was Mr. Arthur Sinclair, who, though not bred in the old service, belonged to one of the old naval families of Virginia, both his father and grandfather having been captains in the United States Navy. These two young gentlemen were also intelligent, and for the short time they had been at sea, well informed in their profession.

My fifth lieutenant was Mr. John Low, of Georgia, a capital seaman, and excellent officer.

Galt, my old surgeon, had accompanied me, as the reader has seen, as did also First Lieutenant Howell, of the marines. Myers, the paymaster of the Sumter, was, unfortunately for me, in prison, in Fort Warren, when the Alabama was commissioned--the Federal authorities still gloating over the prize they had made, through the trickery of the Consul at Tangier, of one of the "pirate's" officers. In his place I was forced to content myself with a man, as paymaster, who shall be nameless in these pages, since he afterward, upon being discharged by me, for his worthlessness, went over to the enemy, and became one of Mr. Adams' hangers-on, and paid witnesses and spies about Liverpool, and the legation in London. As a preparatory step to embracing the Yankee cause, he married a mulatto woman, in Kingston, Jamaica, (though he had a wife living,) whom he swindled out of what little property she had, and then abandoned. I was quite amused, when I saw afterward, in the Liverpool and London papers, that this man, who was devoid of every virtue, and steeped to the lips in every vice, was giving testimony in the English courts, in the interest of the nation of "grand moral ideas." This was the only recruit the enemy ever got from the ranks of my officers.

To complete the circle of the ward-room, I have only to mention Mr. Miles J. Freeman, the chief engineer of the Sumter, who was now filling the same place on board the Alabama, and with whom the reader is already acquainted; Dr. Llewellyn, an Englishman from Wiltshire, who having come out in the Alabama as surgeon when she was yet a merchant-ship, had been retained as assistant surgeon; and Acting Master Bullock, brother of the captain already named in these pages. My "steerage officers," who are too numerous to be named individually, were a capital set of young men, as were the "forward officers." Indeed, with the exception of the black sheep in the ward-room, with Federal propensities, to whom I have alluded, I had reason to be satisfied with my officers of all grades.

I must not forget to introduce to the reader one humble individual of the Alabama's crew. He was my steward, and my household would not be complete without him. When I was making the passage from Nassau to Liverpool, in the Bahama, I noticed a pale, rather delicate, and soft-mannered young man, who was acting as steward on board. He was an obedient, respectful, and attentive major-domo, but, unfortunately, was rather too much addicted to the use of the wine which he set on the table, every day, for the guests. Poor Bartelli--I thus designate him, because of his subsequent sad fate, which the reader will learn in due time--did not seem to have the power of self-restraint, especially under the treatment he received, which was not gentle. The captain was rough toward him, and the poor fellow seemed very much cowed and humbled, trembling when spoken to harshly. His very forlornness drew me toward him. He was an Italian, evidently of gentle blood, and as, with the Italians, drinking to intoxication is not an ineradicable vice, I felt confident that he could be reformed under proper treatment. And so, when we arrived at Terceira, I asked Bartelli how he would like to go with me, as steward, on board the Alabama. He seemed to be delighted with the proposal. "There is one understanding, however," I said to him, "which you and I must have: you must never touch a drop of liquor, on board the ship, on duty. When you go on shore, 'on liberty,' if you choose to have a little frolic, that is your affair, provided, always, you come off sober. Is it a bargain?" "It is, Captain," said he; "I promise you I will behave myself like a man, if you will take me with you." The Captain of the Bahama had no objection, and Bartelli was duly installed as my steward. I found him, as I had expected, a capital servant. He was faithful, and became attached to me, and kept his promise, under strong temptation; for there was always in the cabin-lockers of the Alabama the best of wines and other liquors. He took care of my linen like a woman, washing it himself when we were at sea, and sending it to some careful laundress when in port. I shall, perhaps, astonish a great many husbands and heads of families, when I tell them, that every shirt-button was always in its place, and that I never had to call for needle and thread under difficulties! My mess affairs never gave me the least trouble. My table was always well supplied, and when guests were expected, I could safely leave the arrangements to Bartelli; and then it was a pleasure to observe the air, and grace of manner and speech, with which he would receive my visitors and conduct them into the cabin. Poor Bartelli!

The day after the Bahama left us was cloudy, and cheerless in aspect, with a fresh wind and a rough sea. The ship was rolling and tumbling about, to the discomfort of every one, and confusion still reigned on board. Below decks everything was dirt and disorder. Nobody had as yet been berthed or messed, nor had any one been stationed at a gun or a rope. Spare shot-boxes and other heavy articles were fetching way, and the ship was leaking considerably through her upper works. She had been put together with rather green timber, and, having been caulked in England, in winter, her seams were beginning to gape beneath the ardent heats of a semi-tropical climate. I needed several days yet, to put things "to rights," and mould the crew into a little shape. I withdrew, therefore, under easy sail, from the beaten tracks of commerce; and my first lieutenant went to work berthing, and messing, and quartering, and stationing his men. The gun-equipments were completed, and such little alterations made as were found necessary for the easy and efficient working of the battery, and the guns were sealed with blank cartridges, and put in a proper condition for being loaded promptly. We now devoted several days to the exercise of the crew, as well at general, as division, quarters. Some few of the guns' crews had served in ships of war before, and proved capital drill-sergeants for the rest. The consequence was, that rapid progress was made, and the Alabama was soon in a condition to plume her wings for her flight. It only remained to caulk our upper works, and this occupied us but a day or two longer.

I was much gratified to find that my new ship proved to be a fine sailer, under canvas. This quality was of inestimable advantage to me, as it enabled me to do most of my work under sail. She carried but an eighteen days' supply of fuel, and if I had been obliged, because of her dull sailing qualities, to chase every thing under steam, the reader can see how I should have been hampered in my movements. I should have been half my time running into port for fuel. This would have disclosed my whereabouts so frequently to the enemy, that I should have been constantly in danger of capture, whereas I could now stretch into the most distant seas, and chase, capture, and destroy, perfectly independent of steam. I adopted the plan, therefore, of working under sail, in the very beginning of my cruise, and practised it unto the end. With the exception of half a dozen prizes, all my captures were made with my screw hoisted, and my ship under sail; and with but one exception, as the reader will see hereafter, I never had occasion to use steam to escape from an enemy.

This keeping of the sea, for three, and four months at a time, had another great advantage--it enabled me to keep my crew under better drill, and discipline, and, in every way, better in hand. Nothing demoralizes a crew so much as frequent visits to port. The sailor is as improvident, and incapable of self-government as a child. Indeed he is regarded by most nations as a ward of the state, and that sort of legislation is thrown around him, which is thrown around a ward in chancery. The moment a ship drops her anchor in a port, like the imprisoned bird, he begins to beat the bars of his cage, if he is not permitted to go on shore, and have his frolic; and when on shore, to carry our simile still further, he is like the bird let out of the cage. He gives a loose rein to his passions, and sometimes plunges so deeply into debauchery, that he renders himself unfit for duty, for days, and sometimes weeks, after he is hunted up and brought on board by the police, which is most frequently the manner in which his captain again gets possession of him. Such is the reckless intemperance into which some of the regular old salts plunge, that I have known them to go on shore, make their way straight to a sailor-boarding-house, which is frequently a dance-house, and always a grog-shop, give what money they have about them to the "landlord," and tell him to keep them drunk as long as it will last, and when they have had the worth of it in a good, long, big drunk, to pick them up, and send them off to their ship! The very d----l is to pay, too, when a lot of drunken sailors is brought on board, as every first lieutenant knows. Frequently they have to be knocked down, disarmed of the dangerous sheath-knives which they wear, and confined in irons until they are sober. When that takes place, Jack comes out of the "Brig," his place of confinement, very much ashamed of himself; generally with a blackened eye or two, if not with a broken nose, and looking very seedy in the way of apparel, as the chances are that he has sold or exchanged the tidy suit in which he went on shore, for some 'long-shore toggery, the better to enable him to prolong that delightful drunk of his. It was quite enough to have such scenes as these repeated once in three or four months.

When I had put my ship in a tolerable state of defence, and given a little practice at the guns, to my crew, I turned her head toward her cruising ground. It so happened that this was not very far off. Following Porter's example in the Pacific,--I mean the first Porter, the father of the present Admiral in the Federal Navy,--I resolved to strike a blow at the enemy's whale-fishery, off the Azores. There is a curious and beautiful problem--that of Providence feeding the whale--connected with this fishery, which I doubt not will interest the reader, as it did the writer of these pages, when it first came under his notice. It is because of that problem, that the Azores are a whaling station. The food which attracts the whale to these islands is not produced in their vicinity, but is carried thither by the currents--the currents of the ocean performing the same functions for the finny tribe, that the atmosphere does for the plants. The fishes of the sea, in their kingdom beneath the waters, have thus their highways and byways, as well as the animals upon the land, and are always to be found congregated where their great food-bearers, the currents, make their deposits. Animalculae, infusoria, small fishes, minute crustacea, and shell-fish found on the algae, or floating sea-weed, sea-nettles, and other food, are produced in the more calm latitudes, where the waters are comparatively still, taken up by the currents, and transported to the more congenial feeding-grounds of the whales, and other fishes.

Much of this food is produced in the tepid waters of the sea, into which, it is well known, some descriptions of whales cannot enter. The equatorial belt of waters surrounding the earth, between the tropics, whose temperature is generally 80 deg. of Fahrenheit, is as a sea of fire to the "right" whale. It would be as certain death for this species of whale to attempt to cross these waters, as for a human being to plunge into a burning lake. The proof of this is that the "right" whale of the northern hemisphere is never found in the southern hemisphere, or e converso. It is a separate and distinct species of fish. See how beneficent, therefore, the arrangement is, by which the food for these monsters of the deep is transported from the tepid waters, into which they cannot enter in pursuit of it, to the cooler waters in which they delight to gambol. The Gulf Stream is the great food-carrier for the extra-tropical whales of the northern hemisphere. An intelligent sea-captain, writing to Superintendent Maury of the National Observatory, some years before the war, informed him, that in the Gulf Stream, off the coast of Florida, he fell in with "such a school of young sea-nettles, as had never before been heard of." The sea was literally covered with them for many square leagues. He likened them, in appearance, to acorns floating on the water, but they were so thick as completely to cover the sea. He was bound to England, and was five or six days in sailing through them. In about sixty days afterward, on his return voyage, he fell in with the same school off the Azores, and here he was three or four days in passing them again. He recognized them as the same, for he had never before seen any quite like them; and on both occasions he frequently hauled up buckets full, and examined them. In their adventurous voyage of sixty days, during which they must have been tossed about in several gales of wind, these little marine animals had grown considerably, and already the whales had begun to devour them; for the school was now so much diminished in size, that the captain was enabled to sail through it, in three or four days, instead of the five or six which it had formerly taken him. We see, thus, that the fishes of the sea have their seed-time and harvest; that the same beneficent hand that decks the lilies of the field in garments more superb than those of Solomon, and feeds the young raven, seeds down the great equatorial belt of waters for the fishes; and that when the harvest-time has come, he sends in his reapers and gleaners, the currents, which bind up the sheaves, and bear them off three thousand miles, to those denizens of the great deep, which, perhaps, but for this beautiful and beneficent arrangement, would die of inanition.

The whaling season ends at the Azores about the first of October, when the first winter gales begin to blow, and the food becomes scarce. The whales then migrate to other feeding-grounds, and the adventurous whaler follows them. As we were now, in the first days of September, on board the Alabama, the reader will see, that we had but a few weeks left, in which to accomplish our purpose of striking a blow at the enemy's whale fishery. In the afternoon of September 4th, the weather being fine and clear, we made Pico and Fayal, and reducing sail to topsails, lay off and on during the night. The next day, the weather being cloudy, and the wind light from the eastward, we made our first prize, without the excitement of a chase. A ship having been discovered, lying to, with her foretopsail to the mast, we made sail for her, hoisting the United States colors, and approached her within boarding distance, that is to say, within a few hundred yards, without her moving tack or sheet. She had shown the United States colors in return, as we approached, and proved to be a whaler, with a huge whale, which she had recently struck, made fast alongside, and partially hoisted out of the water by her yard tackles. The surprise was perfect and complete, although eleven days had elapsed since the Alabama had been commissioned at a neighboring island, less than a hundred miles off.

The captured ship proved to be the Ocmulgee, of Edgartown, Massachusetts, whose master was a genuine specimen of the Yankee whaling skipper; long and lean, and as elastic, apparently, as the whalebone he dealt in. Nothing could exceed the blank stare of astonishment, that sat on his face, as the change of flags took place on board the Alabama. He had been engaged, up to the last moment, with his men, securing the rich spoil alongside. The whale was a fine "sperm," and was a "big strike," and had already been denuded of much of its blubber when we got alongside. He naturally concluded, he said, when he saw the United States colors at our peak, that we were one of the new gunboats sent out by Mr. Welles to protect the whale fishery. It was indeed remarkable, that no protection should have been given to these men, by their Government. Unlike the ships of commerce, the whalers are obliged to congregate within small well-known spaces of ocean and remain there for weeks at a time, whilst the whaling season lasts. It was the most obvious thing in the world, that these vessels, thus clustered together, should attract the attention of the Confederate cruisers, and be struck at. There are not more than half a dozen principal whaling stations on the entire globe, and a ship, of size and force, at each, would have been sufficient protection. But the whalers, like the commerce of the United States generally, were abandoned to their fate. Mr. Welles did not seem capable of learning by experience even; for the Shenandoah repeated the successes of the Alabama, in the North Pacific, toward the close of the war. There were Federal steam gunboats, and an old sailing hulk cruising about in the China seas, but no one seemed to think of the whalers, until Waddel carried dismay and consternation among them.

It took us some time to remove the crew of the Ocmulgee, consisting of thirty-seven persons, to the Alabama. We also got on board from her some beef and pork, and small stores, and by the time we had done this, it was nine o'clock at night; too late to think of burning her, as a bonfire, by night, would flush the remainder of the game, which I knew to be in the vicinity; and I had now become too old a hunter to commit such an indiscretion. With a little management and caution, I might hope to uncover the birds, no faster than I could bag them. And so, hoisting a light at the peak of the prize, I permitted her to remain anchored to the whale, and we lay by her until the next morning, when we burned her; the smoke of the conflagration being, no doubt, mistaken by vessels at a distance, for that of some passing steamer.

To those curious in such matters, I may state that a large sperm whale will yield twenty-five barrels of oil from the head alone. The oil is found in its liquid state, and is baled out with buckets, from a hole cut in the top of the head. What can be the uses in the animal economy to which this immense quantity of oil in the head of the fish is applied? They are probably twofold. First, it may have some connection with the sustenance of the animal, in seasons of scarcity of food, and secondly, and more obviously, it appears to be a provision of nature, designed on the same principle on which birds are supplied with air-cells in their bones. The whale, though a very intelligent fish, and with an affection for its "calf," almost human, has but a small brain, the great cavity of its skull being filled as described. As the specific gravity of oil is considerably less than that of water, we can be at no loss to conjecture why the monster has so bountiful a supply, nor why it is that it carries the supply in its head. As is well known, the whale is a warm-blooded mammal, as much so as the cow that roams our pastures, and cannot live by breathing the water alone. Instead of the gill arrangement of other fishes, which enables them to extract from the water sufficient air to vitalize the blood, it has the lungs of the mammal, and needs to breathe the atmosphere. The oil in the head, acting on the principle of the cork, enables it to ascend very rapidly, from great depths in the ocean, when it requires to breathe, or "blow." See how beautiful this oil arrangement is, too, in another aspect. It enables the monster, when it requires rest, to lay its head on the softest kind of a pillow, an ocean wave, and sleep as unconcernedly as the child does upon the bosom of its mother.

On the day after the capture of the Ocmulgee, we chased and overhauled a French ship, bound to Marseilles. After speaking this ship, and telling her that we were a United States cruiser, we bore away north, half west, and in a couple of hours made the island of Flores, the westernmost of the Azores, and a favorite island to be sighted by the whalers, for the correction of their chronometers. Approaching it just at nightfall, we shortened sail, and lay off and on during the night. This island is an exceedingly picturesque object. It rises like a huge mountain from the depths of the sea, with the bluest and deepest of water all around it. It is rock-bound, and there is scarcely any part of it, where a ship might not haul alongside of the rocks, and make fast to the shore. It rises to the height of a thousand feet and more, and is covered with a luxuriant vegetation, the substratum of rock being overlaid with a generous soil. The climate is genial for three-fourths of the year, but almost a perpetual gale howls over it in winter. At a distance, the island appeared like an unbroken mountain, but as we approached it, many beautiful valleys, and gaps in the mountain presented themselves, with the neat white farm-houses of the lonely dwellers peeping out from beneath the dense foliage. It was indeed a beautiful scene to look upon, and such was the air of perfect repose and peace that pervaded it, that a ship of war seemed out of place, approaching its quiet shores.

The next day, Sunday, dawned beautiful and bright, and the Alabama having approached this semi-tropical island, sufficiently near to inhale the fragrance of its shrubs and flowers, mustered her crew for the first time. The reader has now been sufficiently long with us to know, that when we speak of "muster" on board a ship of war, we do not mean simply the calling of the roll, but a ceremony of dress and inspection. With clean, white decks, with the brass and iron work glittering like so many mirrors in the sun, and with the sails neatly trimmed, and the Confederate States flag at our peak, we spread our awnings and read the Articles of War to the crew. A great change had taken place in the appearance of the men, since I made that stump speech to them which has been described. Their parti-colored garments had been cast aside, and they were all neatly arrayed in duck frocks and trousers, well-polished shoes, and straw hats. There was a visible improvement in their health, too. They had been long enough out of Liverpool to recover from the effects of their debauches, and regain their accustomed stamina. This was the first reading of the Articles of War to them, and it was curious to observe the attention with which they listened to the reading, occasionally eying each other, as they were struck by particular portions of them. These Articles, which were copied from similar Articles, for the "better government of the Navy of the United States," were quite severe in their denunciations of crime. The penalty of death frequently occurred in them, and they placed the power of executing this penalty in the hands of the captain and a court-martial.

Jack had already had a little foretaste of discipline, in the two weeks he had been on board; the first lieutenant having brought several of them to the "mast," whence they had been sent into confinement by me, for longer or shorter intervals, according to the grade of their offences; and he now began more distinctly to perceive that he had gotten on board a ship of war, instead of the privateer he had supposed the Alabama to be, and that he would have to toe a pretty straight mark. It is with a disorderly crew, as with other things, the first blows are the most effective. I had around me a large staff of excellent officers, who always wore their side arms, and pistols, when on duty, and from this time onward we never had any trouble about keeping the most desperate and turbulent characters in subjection. My code was like that of the Medes and Persians--it was never relaxed. The moment a man offended, he was seized and confined in irons, and, if the offence was a grave one, a court-martial was sitting on his case in less than twenty-four hours. The willing and obedient were treated with humanity and kindness; the turbulent were jerked down, with a strong hand, and made submissive to discipline. I was as rigid with the officers as with the crew, though, of course, in a different way, and, both officers and men soon learning what was required of them, everything went on, on board the Alabama, after the first few weeks, as smoothly, and with as little jarring as if she had been a well-constructed and well-oiled machine.

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Chapter XXXIII

CAPTURE OF THE STARLIGHT, OCEAN ROVER, ALERT, WEATHER-GAUGE--A RACE BY NIGHT--CAPTURE OF THE ALTAMAHA, VIRGINIA, AND ELIJA DUNBAR--A ROUGH SEA, TOILING BOATS, AND A PICTURESQUE BURNING OF A SHIP IN A GALE.

We were running in, while the muster described in the last chapter was going on, for the little town, or, rather, sea-side village of Lagens, on the south side of the island of Flores, and, having approached the beach quite near, we hove the ship to, and hauling alongside, from the stern, where they had been towing, the whale-boats of the captured ship, which we had brought away from the prize for this purpose, we paroled our prisoners, and, putting them in possession of their boats, shoved them off for the shore. I had two motives in thus landing my prisoners in their own boats, or, to speak more properly, in the boats which had once belonged to them. It saved me the trouble of landing them myself; and, as the boats were valuable, and I permitted the prisoners to put in them as many provisions as they desired, and as much other plunder as they could pick up about the decks of their ships--excepting always such articles as we needed on board the Alabama--the sale of their boats and cargoes to the islanders gave them the means of subsistence, until they could communicate with their consul in the neighboring island of Fayal.

We had scarcely gotten through with the operation of landing our prisoners, before the cry of "sail ho!" came to us from the mast-head; and we made sail in chase of a schooner which was approaching the island, hoisting the English colors to throw the stranger off his guard. As the two vessels were sailing toward each other, they approached very rapidly, and in the course of an hour we were within a mile of each other. Still the schooner did not show any colors. The reason was quite plain; she was American in every feature, and could show us no other colors than such as would subject her to capture, in case we should prove to be her enemy, of which she seemed to be suspicious. Indeed, the gallant little craft, with every stitch of canvas set, sails well hoisted, and sheets a little eased, was now edging off a little from us, and endeavoring to gain the shelter of the well-known marine league, the land being distant only about five miles. Perceiving her object, and seeing that I had only a couple of miles to spare, I kept my own ship off, the better to throw myself across the stranger's path, changed my colors, and fired a blank cartridge to heave her to. But she neither hove to, nor showed colors, being evidently intent upon giving me a race. Although I already had the little craft under my guns, I humored her for a few minutes, just to show her that I could beat her in a fair trial of speed, and when I had proved this, by gaining rapidly upon her, I sent a round shot from one of the bow guns between her masts, a few feet only over the heads of her people. If the reader has heard a 32-pounder whistle, in such close proximity, he knows very well what it says, to wit, that there must be no more trifling. And so the captain of the schooner understood it, for in a moment afterward we could see the graceful little craft luffing up in the wind, brailing up her foresail, and hauling her jib sheet to windward. The welcome stars and stripes fluttered soon afterward from her peak. The master being brought on board with his papers, the prize proved to be the schooner Starlight, of Boston, from Fayal, bound to Boston by the way of Flores, for which island she had some passengers, several ladies among the number.

The crew consisted of seven persons--all good Yankee sailors. Having heard, by this time, full accounts of the shameful treatment of my paymaster of the Sumter, which has been described, in a former chapter, I resolved to practise a little retaliation upon the enemy, and ordered the crew of the Starlight put in irons. I pursued this practice, painful as it was, for the next seven or eight captures, putting the masters and mates of the ships, as well as the crews, in irons. The masters would frequently remonstrate with me, claiming that it was an indignity put upon them; and so it was, but I replied to them, that their countrymen had put a similar indignity upon an officer and a gentleman, who had worn the uniform of the navies of both our countries. By the time that the capture of the Starlight had been completed, the sun was near his setting, and it was too late to land the passengers. I therefore sent a prize crew on board the captured ship, directing the prize-master to lie by me during the night, and giving him especial charge to inform the passengers that they should be safely landed in the morning, and, in the meantime, to quiet the fears of the ladies, who had been much alarmed by the chase and the firing, we hoisted a light at the peak of the Alabama, and lay to, all night, in nearly a calm sea. There were some dark clouds hanging over the island, but they had apparently gone there to roost, as no wind came from them. Among the papers captured on board the Starlight were a couple of despatches from the Federal Consul at Fayal, to the Sewards--father and son--in which there was the usual amount of stale nonsense about "rebel privateers," and "pirates."

The weather proved fine, the next morning, and standing in, within a stone's throw of the little town of Santa Cruz, we landed both passengers and prisoners, putting the latter, as usual, under parole. In the meantime, the Governor of the island, and a number of the dignitaries came off to visit us. They were a robust, farmer-looking people, giving evidence, in their persons, of the healthfulness of the island, and were very polite, franking to us the ports of the island, and informing us that supplies were cheap, and abundant. Their visit was evidently one of curiosity, and we treated his Excellency with all due ceremony, notwithstanding the smallness of his dominions. We talked to him, however, of bullocks, and sheep, fish and turtles, yams and oranges, rather than of the war between the States, and the laws of nations. Bartelli made the eyes of the party dance with flowing goblets of champagne, and when I thought they had remained long enough, I bowed them out of the cabin, with a cigar all round, and sent them on shore, with rather favorable impressions, I do not doubt, of the "pirate."

Hauling off, now, from the island, and running seaward for a space, we chased and overhauled a Portuguese whaling brig. Seeing by her boats and other indications that she was a whaler, I thought, at first, that I had a prize, and was quite disappointed when she showed me the Portuguese colors. Not being willing to trust to the verity of the flag, I sent a boat on board of her, and invited the master to visit me with his papers, which he did. The master was himself a Portuguese, and I found his papers to be genuine. Thanking him for his visit, I dismissed him in a very few minutes. I had no right to command him to come on board of me--he being a neutral, it was my business to go on board of him, if I desired to examine his papers, but he waived ceremony, and it was for this that I had thanked him. I may as well remark here, in passing, that this was the only foreign whaling-ship that I ever overhauled; the business of whaling having become almost exclusively an American monopoly--the monopoly not being derived from any sovereign grant, but resulting from the superior skill, energy, industry, courage, and perseverance of the Yankee whaler, who is, perhaps, the best specimen of a sailor, the world over.

Later in the same afternoon, we chased a large ship, looming up almost like a frigate, in the northwest, with which we came up about sunset. We had showed her the American colors, and she approached us without the least suspicion that she was running into the arms of an enemy; the master crediting good old Mr. Welles, as the master of the Ocmulgee had done, with sending a flashy-looking Yankee gunboat, to look out for his whalebone and oil. This large ship proved to be, upon the master being brought on board with his papers, the Ocean Rover, of New Bedford, Massachusetts. She had been out three years and four months, cruising in various parts of the world, had sent home one or two cargoes of oil, and was now returning, herself, with another cargo, of eleven hundred barrels. The master, though anxious to see his wife, and dandle on his knee the babies that were no longer babies, with true Yankee thrift thought he would just take the Azores in his way home, and make another "strike," or two, to fill up his empty casks. The consequence was, as the reader has seen, a little disappointment. I really felt for the honest fellow, but when I came to reflect, for a moment, upon the diabolical acts of his countrymen of New England, who were out-heroding Herod, in carrying on against us a vindictive war, filled with hate and vengeance, the milk of human kindness which had begun to well up in my heart disappeared, and I had no longer any spare sympathies to dispose of.

It being near night when the capture was made, I directed the prize to be hove to, in charge of a prize crew until morning. In the meantime, however, the master, who had heard from some of my men, that I had permitted the master of the Ocmulgee, and his crew, to land in their own boats, came to me, and requested permission to land in the same manner. We were four or five miles from the land, and I suggested to him, that it was some distance to pull. "Oh! that is nothing," said he, "we whalers sometimes chase a whale, on the broad sea, until our ships are hull-down, and think nothing of it. It will relieve you of us the sooner, and be of some service to us besides." Seeing that the sea was smooth, and that there was really no risk to be run, for a Yankee whale-boat might be made, with a little management, to ride out an ordinary gale of wind, I consented, and the delighted master returned to his ship, to make the necessary preparations. I gave him the usual permission to take what provisions he needed, the whaling gear belonging to his boats, and the personal effects of himself and men. He worked like a beaver, for not more than a couple of hours had elapsed, before he was again alongside of the Alabama, with all his six boats, with six men in each, ready to start for the shore. I could not but be amused when I looked over the side into these boats, at the amount of plunder that the rapacious fellow had packed in them. They were literally loaded down, with all sorts of traps, from the seamen's chests and bedding, to the tabby cat and parrot. Nor had the "main chance" been overlooked, for all the "cabin stores" had been secured, and sundry barrels of beef and pork, besides. I said to him, "Captain, your boats appear to me, to be rather deeply laden; are you not afraid to trust them?" "Oh! no," he replied; "they are as buoyant as ducks, and we shall not ship a drop of water." After a detention of a few minutes, during which my clerk was putting the crew under parole, I gave the master leave to depart.

The boats, shoving off from the side, one by one, and falling into line, struck out for the shore. That night-landing of this whaler's crew was a beautiful spectacle. I stood on the horse-block, watching it, my mind busy with many thoughts. The moon was shining brightly, though there were some passing clouds sailing lazily in the upper air, that fleckered the sea. Flores, which was sending off to us, even at this distance, her perfumes of shrub and flower, lay sleeping in the moonlight, with a few fleecy, white clouds wound around the mountain-top, like a turban. The rocky islets that rise like so many shafts out of the sea, devoid of all vegetation, and at different distances from the shore, looked weird and unearthly, like sheeted ghosts. The boats moving swiftly and mysteriously toward the shore, might have been mistaken, when they had gotten a little distance from us, for Venetian gondolas, with their peaked bows and sterns, especially when we heard coming over the sea, a song, sung by a powerful and musical voice, and chorussed by all the boats. Those merry fellows were thus making light of misfortune, and proving that the sailor, after all, is the true philosopher. The echo of that night-song lingered long in my memory, but I little dreamed, as I stood on the deck of the Alabama, and witnessed the scene I have described, that four years afterward, it would be quoted against me as a violation of the laws of war! And yet so it was. It was alleged by the malice of my defamers, who never have, and never can forgive me for the destruction of their property, that miles away at sea, in rough and inclement weather, I compelled my prisoners to depart for the shore, in leaky and unsound boats, at the hazard of their lives, designing and desiring to drown them! And this was all the thanks I received for setting some of these fellows up as nabobs, among the islanders. Why, the master of the Ocean Rover, with his six boats, and their cargoes, was richer than the Governor, when he landed in Flores; where the simple islanders are content with a few head of cattle, a cast-net, and a canoe.

The Alabama had now two prizes in company, with which she lay off and on the island during the night, and she was destined to secure another before morning. I had turned in, and was sleeping soundly, when about midnight, an officer came below to inform me that there was another large ship close on board of us. I was dressed and on deck in a few minutes. The stranger was plainly visible, being not more than a mile distant. She was heading for the island. I wore ship, as quietly as possible, and followed her, but she had, in the meantime, drawn some distance ahead, and an exciting chase now ensued. We were both close-hauled, on the starboard tack, and the stranger, seeing that he was pursued, put every rag of sail on his ship that he could spread. I could but admire her, with her square yards and white canvas, every sheet home, and every leach taut. For the first half hour, it was hard to tell which ship had the heels of the other, but at the end of that time, we began to head-reach the chase very perceptibly, though the latter rather "eat us out of the wind," or, to speak more conformably with the vocabulary of the land, went to windward of us. This did not matter much, however, as when we should be abreast of her, we would be near enough to reach her with a shot. After a chase of about four hours, day broke, when we hoisted the English ensign. This was a polite invitation to the chase, to show her colors, but she declined to do so. We now felt sure that she was an enemy, and a prize, and as we were still gaining on her, it was only a matter of an hour or two, when she would fall into our hands. Our polite invitation to the chase, to show her colors, not succeeding, we became a little more emphatic, and fired a blank cartridge. Still she was obstinate. She was steering for Flores, and probably, like the Starlight, had her eye on the marine league. Having approached her, in another half hour, within good round-shot range, I resolved to treat her as I had treated the Starlight, and threw a 32-pounder near enough to her stern to give the captain a shower-bath. Shower-baths are very efficacious, in many cases, and we found it so in this, for in a moment more, we could see the stars and stripes ascending to the stranger's peak, and that he had started his tacks and sheets, and was in the act of hauling up his courses. This done, the main-yard was swung aback, and the prize had surrendered herself a prisoner.

Bartelli now came to tell me, that my bath was ready, and descending to the cabin, I bathed, and dressed for breakfast, whilst the boarding-officer was boarding the prize. She proved to be the Alert, of, and from New London, and bound, by the way of the Azores, and Cape de Verde Islands, to the Indian Ocean. She was only sixteen days from port, with files of late newspapers; and besides her own ample outfit for a large crew, and a long voyage, she had on board supplies for the group known as the Navigators' Islands, in the South Indian Ocean, where among icebergs and storms, the Yankees had a whaling and sealing station. This capture proved to be a very opportune one, as we were in want of just such a lot of clothing, for the men, as we found on board the prize; and the choice beef, and pork, nicely put up ship-bread, boxes of soap, and tobacco, and numerous other articles of seaman's supplies did not come amiss. We had been particularly short of a supply of tobacco, this being a costly article in England, and I could see Jack's eye brighten, as he rolled aft, and piled up on the quarter-deck, sundry heavy oaken boxes of good "Virginia twist." That night the pipes seemed to have wonderfully increased in number, on board the Alabama, and the song and the jest derived new inspiration from the fragrance of the weed. We paroled the officers and crew of the Alert, and sent them ashore, in their own boats, as we had done the others.

I had now three prizes on my hands, viz.: the Starlight, the Ocean Rover, and the Alert, with a prize crew on board of each, and as I could make no better use of them than to destroy them, thanks to the unfriendly conduct of neutrals, so often referred to, it became necessary to think of burning them. They were lying at distances, ranging from half a mile to three miles from the Alabama, and were fired within a short time of each other, so that we had three funeral pyres burning around us at the same moment. The other whalers at a distance must have thought that there were a good many steamers passing Flores, that day. It was still early in the afternoon, and there was more work before us ere night set in. I had scarcely gotten my prize crews on board, and my boats run up, before another sail was discovered standing in for the island. We immediately gave chase, or rather, to speak more correctly, proceeded to meet the stranger, who was standing in our direction. The ships approached each other very rapidly, and we soon discovered the new sail to be a large schooner, of unmistakable Yankee build and rig. We hoisted the United States colors, and she responded soon afterward with the stars and stripes. She came on quite unsuspiciously, as the two last prizes had done, until she arrived near enough to see that the three mysterious cones of smoke, at which she had probably been wondering for some time past, proceeded from three ships on fire. Coupling this unusual spectacle with the approach toward her of a rakish-looking barkentine, she at once smelt rather a large rat, and wheeled suddenly in flight. But it was too late. We were already within three miles of her, and a pursuit of half an hour brought her within effective range of our bow-chaser. We now changed colors, and fired a blank cartridge. This was sufficient. She saved us the expenditure of a shot, and hove to, without further ado. Upon being boarded, she proved to be the Weathergauge, a whaler of Provincetown, Massachusetts, six weeks from the land of the Puritan, with other files of newspapers, though not so late as those captured on board the Alert.

In running over these files, it was wonderful to observe the glibness with which these Massachusetts brethren of ours now talked of treason, and of rebels, and traitors, at no greater distance, in point of time, than forty-five years, from the Hartford Convention; to say nothing of certain little idiosyncrasies of theirs, that were developed during the annexation of Texas. There were some "Sunday" papers among the rest, and all the pious parsons and deacons in the land were overflowing with patriotism, and hurling death and damnation from their pulpits, against those who had dared to strike at the "Lord's anointed," the sainted Abraham Lincoln. But as the papers contained little or no war news, we had no time to bestow upon the crotchets of the Yankee brain, and they were promptly consigned to the waste-paper basket. Another sail being discovered, whilst we were receiving the surrender of the Weathergauge, we hastily threw a prize crew on board this latter vessel, directing the prize-master to "hold on to the island of Corvo," during the ensuing night, which was now falling, until we should return, and started off in pursuit of the newly discovered sail.

Chasing a sail is very much like pursuing a coy maiden, the very coyness sharpening the pursuit. The chase, in the present instance, seemed determined to run away from us; and as she was fast, and we were as determined to overhaul her as she was to run away, she led us a beautiful night-dance over the merry waters. The moon rose bright, soon after the chase commenced, and, striking upon the canvas of the fleeing vessel, lighted it up as though it had been a snow-bank. The American vessels are distinguished, above all others, for the whiteness of their canvas; being clothed, for the most part, in the fibre of our cotton-fields. The cut of the sails, and the taper of the spars of the chase looked American, and then the ship was cracking on every stitch of canvas that would draw, in the effort to escape--she must surely be American, we thought. And so we "looked on her, to lust after her," and gave our little ship the benefit of all our skill in seamanship. The speed of the two ships was so nearly matched, that, for the first hour or two, it was impossible to say whether we had gained on her an inch. We were both running dead before the wind, and this was not the Alabama's most favorable sailing-point. With her tall lower masts, and large fore-and-aft sails, she was better on a wind, or with the wind abeam. The chase was leading us away from our cruising-ground, and I should have abandoned it, if I had not had my pride of ship a little interested. It would never do for the Alabama to be beaten in the beginning of her cruise, and that, too, by a merchantman; and so we threw out all our "light kites" to the wind, and gave her the studding-sails "alow and aloft." To make a long story short, we chased this ship nearly all night, and only came up with her a little before dawn; and when we did come up with her, she proved to be a Dane! She was the bark Overman, from Bankok, in Siam, bound to Hamburg. There had been no occasion, whatever, for this neutral ship to flee, and the long chase which she had given me was evidently the result of a little spleen; and so, to revenge myself in a good-natured way, I insisted upon all my belligerent rights. Though satisfied from her reply to my hail, that she was what she proclaimed herself to be, I compelled her to heave to, which involved the necessity of taking in all that beautiful white canvas, with which she had decoyed me so many miles away from my cruising-ground, and sent a boat on board of her to examine her papers. She thus lost more time than if she had shortened sail earlier in the chase, to permit me to come up with her.

It was late next day before I rejoined the Weathergauge off Corvo, and I felt, as I was retracing my steps, pretty much as Music or Rover may be supposed to feel, as he is limping back to his kennel, after a run in pursuit of a fox that has escaped him. Bartelli failed to call me at the usual hour, that morning, and I need not say that I made a late breakfast. We now landed the crew of the Weathergauge, in their own boats, with the usual store of provisions, and traps, and burned her. Two days elapsed now without a capture, during which we overhauled but one ship, a Portuguese bark homeward bound. Having beaten the "cover" of which Flores was the centre, pretty effectually, I now stretched away to the north-west, and ran the island out of sight, intending to skirt it, at the distance of forty or fifty miles. On the third day, the welcome cry of "sail ho!" again rang from the masthead, and making sail in the direction indicated by the look-out, we soon discovered that the chase was a whaler. Resorting to the usual ruse of the enemy's flag, the stranger did not attempt to escape, and in an hour or two more, we were alongside of the American whaling brig Altamaha, from New Bedford, five months out. The Altamaha had had but little success, and was comparatively empty. She did not make so beautiful a bonfire, therefore, as the other whalers had done.

In the afternoon, we overhauled a Spanish ship. Our position, to-day, was latitude 40 deg. 34' N., and longitude 35 deg. 24' 15" W. The barometer stood at 30.3 inches, and the thermometer at 75 deg.; from which the reader will see that the weather was fine and pleasant. It was now the middle of September, however, and a change might be looked for at any moment. On the night after capturing the Altamaha, we had another night-chase, with more success, however, than the last. It was my habit, when there was no "game up," to turn in early, usually at nine o'clock, to enable my physique to withstand the frequent drafts upon its energies. I was already in a sound sleep, when about half-past eleven, an old quartermaster came below, and giving my cot a gentle shake, said: "There has a large ship just passed to windward of us, on the opposite tack, sir." I sprang out of bed at once, and throwing on a few clothes, was on deck almost as soon as the quartermaster. I immediately wore ship, and gave chase. My ship was under topsails, and it took us some little time to make sail. By this time the chase was from two and a half to three miles distant, but quite visible to the naked eye, in the bright moonlight. We were both close-hauled on the starboard tack, the chase about three points on the weather bow. The stranger, who was probably keeping a better look-out than is usual with merchant-ships, in consequence of the war, had discovered our movement, and knew he was pursued, as we could see him setting his royals and flying jib, which had been furled. The Alabama was now at her best point of sailing. The sailors used to say, when we drew aft the sheets of those immense trysails of hers, and got the fore-tack close aboard, that she was putting on her seven-league boots. She did, indeed, then seem

"To walk the waters like a thing of life,"

and there were few sailing ships that could run away from her.

We gained from the start upon the chase, and in a couple of hours, were on his weather-quarter, having both head-reached, and gone to windward of him. He was now no more than about a mile distant, and I fired the accustomed blank cartridge to heave him to. The sound of the gun broke upon the stillness of the night, with startling effect, but the chase did not stir tack or sheet in obedience to it. She was evidently resolved to try conclusions with me a little farther. Finding that I had the advantage of him, on a wind, he kept off a little, and eased his sheets, and we could see, with our night-glasses, that he was rigging out his studding-sail booms preparatory to setting the sails upon them. We kept off in turn, bringing the wind a little forward of the beam, and such good use did the Alabama make of her seven-league boots, that before the stranger could get even his foretopmast studding-sail set, we had him within good point-blank range of a 32-pounder. The moon was shining very poetically, and the chase was very pretty, but it was rather "after hours," and so I resolved to shift the scenes, cut short the drama an act or two, and bring it to a close. I now fired a second gun, though still unshotted, and the smoke had hardly blown away before we could see the stranger hauling up his courses, and bringing his ship to the wind, as much as to say, "I see you have the heels of me, and there is no use in trying any longer." I gave the boarding-officer orders, in case the ship should prove to be a prize, of which I had but little doubt, to show me a light as soon as he should get on board of her. The oars of his boat had scarcely ceased to resound, before I saw the welcome light ascending to the stranger's peak, and knew that another of the enemy's ships had fallen into my power. It was now nearly daylight, and I went below and finished the nap which had been so unceremoniously broken in upon. I may as well observe here, that I scarcely ever disturbed the regular repose of the officers and crew during these night operations. Everything was done by the watch on deck, and "all hands" were never called except on emergencies.

When I came on deck the next morning, there was a fine large ship lying under my lee, awaiting my orders. She proved to be the Benjamin Tucker, of New Bedford, eight months out, with three hundred and forty barrels of oil. We received from her an additional supply of tobacco, and other small stores. As early as ten o'clock, the crew of the Tucker, numbering thirty persons, were on board the Alabama, and the ship was on fire. The remainder of this day, and the next, passed without incident, except the incidents of wind, and weather, which have so often been recorded. We improved the leisure, by exercising the men at the guns, and caulking the decks, which were again beginning to let water enough through them, to inconvenience the men in their hammocks below. Just as the sun was setting, on the evening of the second day, we caught a glimpse from the mast-head of the island of Flores, distant about forty miles.

The next morning dawned bright and clear, with a smooth sea, and summer clouds sailing lazily overhead, giving us just breeze enough to save us from the ennui of a calm. As soon as the morning mists lifted themselves from the surface of the waters, a schooner appeared in sight, at no great distance. We had approached each other unwittingly during the night. We immediately gave chase, hoisting the United States colors, for the schooner was evidently Yankee. She did not attempt to escape, and when, as early as half-past seven A. M., we came near enough to fire a gun, and change colors, she hove to, and surrendered. She was the whaling-schooner Courser, of Provincetown, Massachusetts. Her master was a gallant young fellow, and a fine specimen of a seaman, and if I could have separated him, in any way, from the "Universal Yankee Nation," I should have been pleased to spare his pretty little craft from the flames; but the thing was impossible. There were too many white-cravatted, long-haired fellows, bawling from the New-England pulpits, and too many house-burners and pilferers inundating our Southern land, to permit me to be generous, and so I steeled my heart, as I had done on a former occasion, and executed the laws of war.

Having now the crews of the three last ships captured, on board, amounting to about seventy, who were not only beginning, on account of their number, and the limited accommodations of the Alabama, to be uncomfortable themselves, but were inconveniencing my own people, and hindering more or less the routine of the ship, I resolved to run back to Flores, and land them. I had eight whale-boats in tow, which I had brought away from the burning ships, for the purpose of landing these prisoners, and, no doubt, the islanders, as they saw my well-known ship returning, with such a string of boats, congratulated themselves upon the prospect of other good bargains with the Yankees. The traffic must now have been considerable in this little island; such was the avalanche of boats, harpoons, cordage, whales' teeth, whalebones, beef, pork, tobacco, soap, and jack-knives that I had thrown on shore. When we had reached sufficiently near, I shoved all the boats off at once, laden with my seventy prisoners, and there was quite a regatta under the lee of Flores that afternoon, the boats of each ship striving to beat the others to the shore. The fellows seemed to be so well pleased, that I believe, with a little coaxing, they would have been willing to give three cheers for the Alabama.

We had some sport ourselves, after the prisoners had departed; for we converted the Courser into a target, before setting fire to her, and gave the crew a little practice at her, with the battery. They did pretty well for green hands, but nothing to boast of. They were now becoming somewhat familiar with the gun exercise, and in the evolutions that are usually taught sailors at general quarters. Not only my excellent first lieutenant, but all the officers of the divisions, took great pains with them, and their progress was quite satisfactory.

We again stood away to the northward and westward, under easy sail, during the night, and the next day, the weather being still fine, and the breeze moderate from the south-west, in latitude about 40 deg., and longitude 33 deg., we chased a large ship which tried her heels with us--to no purpose, however--as we overhauled her in about three hours and a half. It was another American whaling ship, the Virginia, only twenty days out, from New Bedford. She brought us another batch of late newspapers, and being fitted out, like the Alert, for a long cruise, we got on board some more supplies from her. The master of this ship expressed great surprise at the speed of the Alabama, under sail. His own ship, he said, was fast, but he had stood "no chance" with the Alabama. It was like a rabbit attempting to run away from a greyhound. We burned the Virginia, when we had gotten our supplies on board, and despoiled her of such cordage, and spare sails as we needed, and stood away to the north-west again. The torch having been applied to her rather late in the afternoon, the burning wreck was still visible some time after nightfall.

The next morning the weather had changed considerably. It was cloudy, and rather angry-looking, and the wind was fresh and increasing. We overhauled a French brig, during the day, and after detaining her no longer than was necessary to examine her papers, permitted her to depart. We had barely turned away from the Frenchman, when a bark was announced from the mast-head. We immediately gave chase. We had to wear ship for this purpose, and the bark, which seemed to have descried us, quite as soon as we had descried her, observing the evolution, made all sail at once, in flight. Here was another chase, and under different circumstances from any of those that had preceded it. It was blowing half a gale of wind, and it remained to be proved whether the Alabama was as much to be dreaded in rough weather as in smooth. Many smooth-water sailers lose their quality of speed entirely, when the seas begin to buffet them. I had the wind of the chase, and was thus enabled to run down upon her, with a flowing sheet. I held on to my topgallant sails, though the masts buckled, and bent as though the sticks would go over the side. The chase did the same. It was soon quite evident that my gallant little ship was entirely at home in the roughest weather. She seemed, like a trained racer, to enjoy the sport, and though she would tremble, now and then, as she leaped from sea to sea, it was the tremor of excitement, not of weakness. We gained so rapidly upon the chase, that in three hours from the time the race commenced, we had her within the range of our guns. By way of a change, I had chased this ship under English colors, but she obstinately refused to show any colors herself, until she was compelled, by the loud-mouthed command of a gun. She then ran up that "flaunting lie," the "old flag," and clewed up her topgallant sails, and hauled up her courses, and submitted to her fate, with such resignation as she might.

I now not only took in my topgallant sails, and hauled up my courses, but furled the latter, and took a single reef in my topsails, so fresh was the wind blowing. Indeed it was so rough, that I hesitated a moment about launching my boats; but there was evidently a gale brewing, and if I did not take possession of my prize, she would in all probability escape during the darkness and tempest of the ensuing night. I had a set of gallant, and skilful young officers around me, who would dare anything I told them to dare, and some capital seamen, and with the assistance I could give them, by manoeuvring the ship, I thought the thing could be managed; and so I ordered two of the best boats to be launched, and manned. We were lying to, to windward of the prize, and the boats had nothing to do, of course, but to pull before the wind and sea to reach her. I directed the boarding-officers to bring off nothing whatever, from the prize, in the way of property, except her chronometer, and her flag, and told them when they should have gotten the prisoners on board and were ready to return, that I would run down to leeward of the prize to receive them. They would thus, still, only have to pull before the wind, and the sea, to regain their ship. The prize was to be fired just before leaving her. This was all accomplished successfully; but the reader may well conceive my anxiety, as I watched those frail, tempest-tossed boats, as they were returning to me, with their human freight; now thrown high on the top of some angry wave, that dashed its foam and spray over them, as though it would swamp them, for daring thus to beard it, and now settling entirely out of sight in the trough of the sea. When they pulled under the lee of the Alabama, and we threw them a rope, I was greatly relieved. This was the only ship I ever burned, before examining her papers. But as she was a whaler, and so could have no neutral cargo on board, the risk to be run was not very great. She proved to be the Elisha Dunbar of New Bedford, twenty-four days out.

This burning ship was a beautiful spectacle, the scene being wild and picturesque beyond description. The black clouds were mustering their forces in fearful array. Already the entire heavens had been overcast. The thunder began to roll, and crash, and the lightning to leap from cloud to cloud in a thousand eccentric lines. The sea was in a tumult of rage; the winds howled, and floods of rain descended. Amid this turmoil of the elements, the Dunbar, all in flames, and with disordered gear and unfurled canvas, lay rolling and tossing upon the sea. Now an ignited sail would fly away from a yard, and scud off before the gale; and now the yard itself, released from the control of its braces, would swing about wildly, as in the madness of despair, and then drop into the sea. Finally the masts went by the board, and then the hull rocked to and fro for a while, until it was filled with water, and the fire nearly quenched, when it settled to the bottom of the great deep, a victim to the passions of man, and the fury of the elements.

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Chapter XXXIV

THE YANKEE COLONY IN THE ISLAND OF FLORES--WHAT THE CAPTAINS OF THE VIRGINIA AND ELISHA DUNBAR SAID OF THE ALABAMA, WHEN THEY GOT BACK TO THE LAND OF THE "SAINTS"--THE WHALING SEASON AT THE AZORES AT AN END--THE ALABAMA CHANGES HER CRUISING GROUND--WHAT SHE SAW AND DID.

The reader has seen how rapidly we had been peopling the little island of Flores. I had thrown ashore there, nearly as many Yankee sailors as there were original inhabitants. I should now have gone back with the crews of two more ships, but for the bad weather. Jack, suddenly released from the labors and confinement of his ship, must have run riot in this verdant little paradise, where the law was too weak to restrain him. With his swagger, devil-may-care air, and propensity for fun and frolic, when he has a drop in his eye, the simple inhabitants must have been a good deal puzzled to fix the genus of the bird that had so suddenly dropped down upon them. The history of my colony would, no doubt, be highly interesting; and I trust that some future traveller will disinter it from the archives of the island, for the benefit of mankind. The police reports would be of especial interest. In due time the Federal Consul at Fayal chartered a vessel, and removed the colony back to the New England States.

The gale which was described in the last chapter, did not prove to be very violent, though it blew sufficiently fresh to reduce the Alabama to close-reefed topsails, with the bonnets off her trysails. It was but the forerunner of a series of gales, occurring about the period of the equinox. The bad weather had the effect to put an end to the whaling season, a little in advance of the regular time. From the 19th to the 23d of September, we were constantly under reefed sails, and the wind being from the northward, we drifted as far south as the 34th degree of latitude. We were now in a comparatively unfrequented part of the ocean, and had not seen a sail since the capture of the Elisha Dunbar. During the prevalence of this bad weather, our prisoners necessarily suffered some inconvenience, and were obliged to submit to some discomforts. I need not say that these were greatly magnified by the Northern press. The masters of the captured ships took this mode of revenging themselves upon me. The captains of the last two ships captured, made long complaints against the Alabama, when they got back to New England, and I will here give them the benefit of their own stories, that the reader may see what they amount to. It is the master of the Virginia who speaks first--a Captain Tilton. He says:--

"I went on the quarter-deck, with my son, when they ordered me into the lee waist, with my crew, and all of us were put in irons, with the exception of the two boys, and the cook and steward. I asked if I was to be put in irons? The reply of Captain Semmes was, that his purser had been put in irons, and had his head shaved by us, and that he meant to retaliate. We were put in the lee waist, with an old sail over us, and a few planks to lie upon. The steamer was cruising to the west, and the next day, they took the Elisha Dunbar, her crew receiving the same treatment as ourselves. The steamer's guns being kept run out, the side ports could not be shut, and when the sea was a little rough, or the vessel rolled, the water was continually coming in on both sides, and washing across the deck where we were, so that our feet and clothing were wet all the time, either from the water below, or the rain above. We were obliged to sleep in the place where we were, and often waked up in the night nearly under water. Our fare consisted of beef and pork, rice, beans, tea, and coffee, and bread. Only one of my irons was allowed to be taken off at a time, and we had to wash in salt water. We kept on deck all the time, night and day, and a guard was placed over us."

The above statement is substantially correct, with the exception that the prisoners were not drenched with sea-water, or with the rain, all the time, as is pretended. It is quite true that they were compelled to live, and sleep on deck. We had nowhere else to put them. My berth-deck was filled with my own crew, and it was not possible to berth prisoners there, without turning my own men out of their hammocks. To remedy this difficulty, we spread a tent, made of spare sails, and which was quite tight, in the lee waist, and laid gratings upon the deck, to keep the men and their bedding as dry as possible. Ordinarily they were very comfortable, but sometimes, during the prevalence of gales, they were, no doubt, a little disturbed in their slumbers by the water, as Captain Tilton says. But I discharged them all in good physical condition, and this is the best evidence I could give, that they were well cared for. It was certainly a hardship that Captain Tilton should have nothing better to eat than my own crew, and should be obliged, like them, to wash in salt water, but he was waited upon by his own cook and steward, and the reader can see from his own bill of fare, that he was in no danger of starving. He was, as he says, ordered off the quarter-deck. That is a place sacred to the officers of the ship, where even their own crew are not permitted to come, except on duty, and much less a prisoner. He explains, himself, as I had previously explained to the reader, how he came to be put in irons. The "good book" says that we must have "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." The enemy had put one of my officers in irons, and I had followed the rule of the "good book." Now let us hear from Captain Gifford, of the Dunbar. This witness says:--

"On the morning of the 18th of September, in latitude 39 deg. 50', longitude 35 deg. 20', with the wind from the south-west, and the bark heading south-east, saw a steamer on our port-quarter, standing to the north-west. Soon after, found she had altered her course, and was steering for the bark. We soon made all sail to get out of her reach, and were going ten knots at the time; but the steamer, gaining on us, under canvas alone, soon came up with us, and fired a gun under our stern, with the St. George's cross flying at the time. Our colors were set, when she displayed the Confederate flag. Being near us, we hove to, and a boat, with armed officers and crew, came alongside, and upon coming on board, stated to me that my vessel was a prize to the Confederate steamer Alabama, Captain Semmes. I was then ordered on board the steamer with my papers, and the crew to follow me with a bag of clothing each. On getting on board, the captain claimed me as a prize, and said that my vessel would be burned. Not having any clothes with me, he allowed me to return for a small trunk of clothes;--the officer on board asked me what I was coming back for, and tried to prevent me from coming on board. I told him I came after a few clothes, which I took, and returned to the steamer. It blowing very hard at the time, and very squally, nothing but the chronometer, sextant, charts, &c., were taken, when the vessel was set fire to, and burnt; there were sixty-five barrels of sperm oil on deck, taken on the passage, which were consumed. We were all put in irons, and received the same treatment that Captain Tilton's officers and crew did, who had been taken the day before. While on board, we understood that the steamer would cruise off the Grand Banks, for a few weeks, to destroy the large American ships, to and from the Channel ports. They had knowledge of two ships being loaded with arms for the United States, and were in hopes to capture them. They were particularly anxious to fall in with the clipper-ship Dreadnought, and destroy her, as she was celebrated for speed; and they were confident of their ability to capture, or run away from any vessel in the United States. The steamer being in the track of outward and homeward-bound vessels, and more or less being in sight, every day, she will make great havoc among them."

Captain Gifford does not seem to have anything to complain of, in particular, except that the sailors had to put their clothes in bags, and that his trunk was "small;" but both he and his sailors got their clothing, which was more than some of our women and children, in the South, did, when the gallant Sherman, and the gallant Wilson, and the gallant Stoneman, and a host of other gallant fellows, were making their "grand marches," and "raids" in the South, merely for the love of "grand moral ideas." The terrible drenchings, that Captain Tilton got, did not seem to have made the same impression upon Captain Gifford.

Few of the masters, whose ships I burned, ever told the whole truth, when they got back among their countrymen. Some of them forgot, entirely, to mention how they had implored me to save their ships from destruction, professing to be the best of Democrats, and deprecating the war which their countrymen were making upon us! How they had come to sea, bringing their New England cousins with them, to get rid of the draft, and how abhorrent to them the sainted Abraham was. "Why, Captain," they would say, "it is hard that I should have my ship burned; I have voted the Democratic ticket all my life; I was a Breckinridge man in the last Presidential contest; and as for the 'nigger,' if we except a few ancient spinsters, who pet the darkey, on the same principle that they pet a lap-dog, having nothing else to pet, and a few of our deacons and 'church-members,' who have never been out of New England--all of whom are honest people enough in their way--and some cunning political rascals, who expect to rise into fame and fortune on the negro's back, we, New England people, care nothing about him." "That may be all very true," I would reply; "but, unfortunately, the 'political rascals,' of whom you speak, have been strong enough to get up this war, and you are in the same boat with the 'political rascals,' whatever may be your individual opinions. Every whale you strike will put money into the Federal treasury, and strengthen the hands of your people to carry on the war. I am afraid I must burn your ship." "But, Captain, can't we arrange the matter in some way? I will give you a ransom-bond, which my owners and myself will regard as a debt of honor." (By the way, I have some of these debts of honor in my possession, now, which I will sell cheap.) And so they would continue to remonstrate with me, until I cut short the conversation, by ordering the torch applied to their ships. They would then revenge themselves in the manner I have mentioned; and historians of the Boynton class would record their testimony as truth, and thus Yankee history would be made.

The whaling season at the Azores being at an end, as remarked, I resolved to change my cruising-ground, and stretch over to the Banks of Newfoundland, and the coast of the United States, in quest (as some of my young officers, who had served in the China seas, playfully remarked) of the great American junk-fleet. In China, the expression "junk-fleet" means, more particularly, the grain-ships, that swarm all the seas and rivers in that populous empire, in the autumn, carrying their rich cargoes of grain to market. It was now the beginning of October. There was no cotton crop available, with which to freight the ships of our loving Northern brethren, and conduct their exchanges. They were forced to rely upon the grain crop of the great Northwest; the "political rascals" having been cunning enough to wheedle these natural allies of ours into this New England war. They needed gold abroad, with which to pay for arms, and military supplies of various kinds, shiploads of which were, every day, passing into New York and Boston, in violation of those English neutrality laws, which, as we have seen, Mr. Seward and Mr. Adams had been so persistently contending should be enforced against ourselves. Western New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Iowa had gathered in the rich harvests from their teeming grain-fields; and it was this grain, laden in Yankee ships, which it was my object now to strike at.

The change from one cruising-ground to another, during which no vessels were sighted, afforded my crew a much-needed relaxation of a few days, for they had been much fagged and worn during the last month, by a succession of captures. That which had been but a pleasurable excitement, in the beginning, soon became a wearing and exhausting labor, and they were glad to be relieved, for a time, from the chasing and burning of ships, hard service in boats during all kinds of weather, and the wet jackets and sleepless nights, which had sometimes been the consequences of these. I will avail myself of this comparative calm, in the moral atmosphere on board the Alabama, to introduce the reader, more particularly, to our interior life. Thus far, he has only seen the ship of war, in her outward garb, engaged in her vocation. I propose to give him a sight of my military family, and show him how my children played as well as worked; how I governed them, and with what toys I amused them.

From the very beginning of our captures, an order had been issued, that no sailor should lay his hand on any article of property, to appropriate it to his own use, unless by permission of an officer; and especially that no spirituous liquors should be brought on board the Alabama. It was made the duty of every boarding-officer, upon getting on board a prize, to demand possession of the keys of the liquor-lockers, and either to cause the liquor to be destroyed, or thrown overboard. To the rigid enforcement of this rule, I attribute much of the good order which prevailed on board my ship. It was enforced against the officers, as well the men, and no officer's mess was allowed to supply itself with liquor, by purchase, or otherwise, unless by my consent; and I never gave this consent to the midshipmen's mess. We burned, on one occasion, a ship, whose entire cargo consisted of French brandies, and champagne, and other wines, without allowing a bottle of it to be brought on board. But whilst I used these precautions, I caused a regular allowance of "grog" to be served out to the crew, twice in each day. I was quite willing that Jack should drink, but I undertook to be the judge of how much he should drink.

Such articles of clothing and supplies as were captured, were turned over to the paymaster, to be credited to the Government, and duly issued and charged to the crew, as if they had been purchased in the market. In spite of all these precautions, however, a sailor would now and then be brought on board from a prize, drunk, would manage to smuggle liquor to his comrades, and would be found arrayed in all sorts of strange garbs, from whaler's boots, and red flannel shirts and comforters, to long-tailed coats and beaver hats. Notwithstanding the discipline of the ship, the gravity of the crew would sometimes give way to merriment, as one of these fellows, thus ludicrously apparelled, would have to be hoisted or lifted on board, being too comfortably drunk to attend to his own locomotion. Each offender knew that he would have to walk straight into the "Brig," upon being thus detected in the violation of these orders, and that punishment would speedily follow the offence; and yet I found it one of the most difficult parts of my duty, to convince some of these free-and-easy fellows, who had mistaken the Alabama, when they signed the articles off Terceira, (after that stump speech before referred to,) for what Mr. Seward and Mr. Adams insisted she was, a "privateer," that everything was captured in the name of the Confederate States, and that nothing belonged to them personally. The California-bound ships frequently had on board boxes and bales of fine clothing, boots, shoes, and hats, but not a garment was allowed to be brought on board except such as the paymaster might need for issue. It seemed hard to consign all these tempting articles to the flames, without permitting the sailors to help themselves, but if such license had been permitted, disorder and demoralization would have been the consequence.

I had no chaplain on board, but Sunday was always kept as a day of abstinence from labor, when the exigencies of war and weather would permit, and it was my uniform practice on this day, to have the ship thoroughly cleansed, in every part, for inspection--particularly the sleeping apartments, and the engine-room--and to require the officers and seamen to appear on the quarter-deck for muster; the former in their appropriate uniforms, and the latter in clean duck frocks and trousers, or other clothing adapted to the latitude and climate. The reader has already been present at several of these musters. The boys of the ship, of whom I had quite a number on board, were placed under the special charge of the master-at-arms--a subordinate officer, with police-powers, in charge of the berth-deck--whose duty it was to inspect them, in every morning watch, with reference to personal cleanliness; turning down the collars, and rolling up the trousers of the youngsters, to see that they had duly performed their ablutions. These boys had been taken from the stews, and haunts of vice about Liverpool, and were as great a set of scamps as any disciplinarian could desire to "lick into shape," but it is astonishing what a reformation soap and water and the master-at-arms effected in them, in a short time. Many of them became very respectable young fellows, for which they were indebted almost entirely to the free use of soap and water.

As a hygienic precaution, when we were cruising in warm latitudes, where the dews were heavy, the whole crew was required to appear, every evening, at sunset muster, in blue flannel shirts and trousers. They could then sleep in the dews, without the fear of colds or rheumatisms. We were always supplied with the best of provisions, for, being at war with a provision-producing people, almost every ship we captured afforded us a greater or less supply; and all the water that was drank on board the Alabama was condensed by the engine from the vapor of sea-water. The consequence of all this care was highly gratifying to me, as, in the three years I was afloat, I did not lose a man by disease, in either of my ships! When it is recollected that I cruised in all parts of the world, now fencing out the cold, and battling with the storms of the North Atlantic and South Indian Oceans, and now being fried, and baked, and stewed within the tropics, and on the equator, and that, besides my own crews, some two thousand of the enemy's sailors passed through my hands, first and last, as prisoners, this is a remarkable statement to be able to make. My excellent surgeon, Dr. Galt, and, after him, Dr. Llewellyn, ably seconded me by their skill and experience.

On week days we mustered the crew at their quarters twice a day--at nine A. M., and at sunset, and when the weather was suitable, one division, or about one fourth of the crew, was exercised, either at the battery, or with small arms. This not only gave them efficiency in the use of their weapons, but kept them employed--the constant employment of my men being a fundamental article of my philosophy. I found the old adage, that "Idleness is the parent of vice," as true upon the sea as upon the land. My crew were never so happy as when they had plenty to do, and but little to think about. Indeed, as to the thinking, I allowed them to do very little of that. Whenever I found I had a sea-lawyer among them, I got rid of him as soon as possible--giving him a chance to desert. I reserved the quids, and quos, and pros and cons, exclusively for myself.

But though I took good care to see that my men had plenty of employment, it was not all work with them. They had their pastimes and pleasures, as well as labors. After the duties of the day were over, they would generally assemble on the forecastle, and, with violin, and tambourine--and I always kept them supplied with these and other musical instruments--they would extemporize a ball-room, by moving the shot-racks, coils of rope, and other impediments, out of the way, and, with handkerchiefs tied around the waists of some of them, to indicate who were to be the ladies of the party, they would get up a dance with all due form and ceremony; the ladies, in particular, endeavoring to imitate all the airs and graces of the sex--the only drawback being a little hoarseness of the voice, and now and then the use of an expletive, which would escape them when something went wrong in the dance, and they forgot they had the aprons on. The favorite dancing-tunes were those of Wapping and Wide Water Street, and when I speak of the airs and graces, I must be understood to mean those rather demonstrative airs and graces, of which Poll and Peggy would be likely to be mistresses of. On these occasions, the discipline of the ship was wont to be purposely relaxed, and roars of laughter, and other evidences of the rapid flight of the jocund hours, at other times entirely inadmissible, would come resounding aft on the quarter-deck.

Sometimes the recreation of the dance would be varied, and songs and story-telling would be the amusements of the evening. The sea is a wide net, which catches all kinds of fish, and in a man-of-war's crew a great many odd characters are always to be found. Broken-down gentlemen, who have spent all the money they have been able to raise, upon their own credit, or that of their friends; defaulting clerks and cashiers; actors who have been playing to empty houses; third-class musicians and poets, are all not unfrequently found in the same ship's company. These gentlemen play a very unimportant role in seamanship, but they take a high rank among the crew, when fun and frolic, and not seamanship, are the order of the day--or rather night. In the Alabama, we had a capital Falstaff, though Jack's capacious pouch was not often with "fat capon lined;" and as for "sherry-sack," if he now and then got a good glass of "red-eye" instead, he was quite content. We had several Hals, who had defied their harsh old papas, and given them the slip, to keep Falstaff company; and as for raconteurs, we had them by the score. Some of these latter were equal to the Italian lazzaroni, and could extemporize yarns by the hour; and there is nothing of which a sailor is half so fond as a yarn.

It was my custom, on these occasions, to go forward on the bridge--a light structure spanning the deck, near amidships--which, in the twilight hours, was a sort of lounging-place for the officers, and smoke my single cigar, and listen to whatever might be going on, almost as much amused as the sailors themselves. So rigid is the discipline of a ship of war, that the captain is necessarily much isolated from his officers. He messes alone, walks the quarter-deck alone, and rarely, during the hours of duty, exchanges, even with his first lieutenant, or officer of the deck, other conversation than such as relates to the ship, or the service she is upon. I felt exceedingly the irksomeness of my position, and was always glad of an opportunity to escape from it. On the "bridge," I could lay aside the "captain," gather my young officers around me, and indulge in some of the pleasures of social intercourse; taking care to tighten the reins, gently, again, the next morning. When song was the order of the evening, after the more ambitious of the amateurs had delivered themselves of their solos and cantatas, the entertainment generally wound up with Dixie, when the whole ship would be in an uproar of enthusiasm, sometimes as many as a hundred voices joining in the chorus; the unenthusiastic Englishman, the stolid Dutchman, the mercurial Frenchman, the grave Spaniard, and even the serious Malayan, all joining in the inspiring refrain,--

"We'll live and die in Dixie!"

and astonishing old Neptune by the fervor and novelty of their music.

Eight o'clock was the hour at which the night-watches were set, when, of course, all merriment came to an end. When the officer of the deck reported this hour to the captain, and was told by the latter, to "make it so," he put the trumpet to his mouth, and sang out in a loud voice, "Strike the bell eight--call the watch!" In an instant, the most profound silence fell upon the late uproarious scene. The witches did not disappear more magically, in that famous revel of Tam O'Shanter, when Tam sang out, "Weel dune, Cutty Sark!" than the sailors dispersed at this ominous voice of authority. The violinist was arrested with half-drawn bow; the raconteur suddenly ceased his yarn in the most interesting part of his story, and even the inspiring chorus of "Dixie" died a premature death, upon the lips of the singers. The shrill call of the boatswain's whistle, followed by his hoarse voice, calling "All the starboard watch!" or "All the port watch!" as the case might be, would now be heard, and pretty soon, the watch, which was off duty, would "tumble" below to their hammocks, and the midshipman would be seen coming forward from the quarter-deck, with lantern and watch-bill in hand, to muster the watch whose turn it was to be on deck. The most profound stillness now reigned on board during the remainder of the night, only broken by the necessary orders and movements, in making or taking in sail, or it may be, by the whistling of the gale, and the surging of the sea, or the cry of the look-outs at their posts, every half hour.

To return now to our cruise. We are passing, the reader will recollect, from the Azores to the Banks of Newfoundland. On the 1st of October, the following record is found upon my journal: "The gale moderated during the last night, but the weather, to-day, has been thick and rainy, with the wind from the north-west, and a confused, rough sea. No observation for latitude. The barometer, which had gone down to 29.8 is rising, and stands at nine P. M. at 29.9. The ship being about two hundred miles only, from the Banks of Newfoundland, we are trying the temperature of the air and water every hour. At nine P. M. we found the temperature of the former to be 63 deg., and of the latter 70 deg., indicating that we have passed into the Gulf Stream." The thick, rainy weather is almost as unerring a sign of the presence of this stream as the thermometer.

The stream into which we have now passed is, literally, an immense salt-water river in the sea. Coming out of the Gulf of Mexico, it has brought the temperature of the tropics, all the way to the Banks of Newfoundland, in the latitude of 50 deg. north, and it has run this distance between banks, or walls of cold water, on either side, parting with very little of its warmth, by the way. When it is recollected that this salt-water river in the sea is about three thousand times larger than the Mississippi River, that is to say, that it brings out of the Gulf of Mexico, three thousand times as much water, as that river empties into it, and that all this great body of water is carried up into the hyperborean regions of Newfoundland, at a temperature, even in mid-winter, ranging from 73 to 78 degrees, it will be seen at once what a powerful weather-breeder it must be. Accordingly, no port of the world is more stormy than the Gulf Stream, off the north-eastern coast of the United States, and the Banks of Newfoundland. Such is the quantity of heat brought daily by this stream, and placed in juxtaposition with the rigors of a Northern winter, that it is estimated, that if it were suddenly stricken from it, it would be sufficient to make the column of superincumbent atmosphere hotter than melted iron! With such an element of atmospheric disturbance, it is not wonderful that the most terrific gales, that rage on the ocean, are wont to sweep over the surface of this stream.

Indeed, this stream not only generates hurricanes of its own, it seems to attract to it such as are engendered in the most distant parts of our hemisphere; for hurricanes known to have originated near Cape St. Roque, in Brazil, have made their way straight for the Gulf Stream, and followed it, in its course, for a thousand miles and more, spreading shipwreck and disaster, broadcast, in their track. The violence of these gales is inconceivable by those who have not witnessed them. The great hurricane of 1780 originated to the eastward of the island of Barbadoes, and made straight for the Gulf Stream. As it passed over the West India Islands, trees were uprooted, and the bark literally blown from them. The very bottom and depths of the sea, in the vicinity of some of the islands, were uncovered, and rocks torn up, and new channels formed. The waves rose to such a height, that forts, and castles, removed, as it was thought, far out of the reach of the water, were washed away, and the storm, taking hold of their heavy artillery, played with it, as with so many straws, throwing it to considerable distances. Houses were razed, and ships wrecked, and the bodies of men and beasts were lifted up into the air and dashed to pieces in the storm. Still, the European-bound ships defy all the bad weather, so prevalent in this stream, on account of the easterly current which accelerates their passage, at the rate of from two, to three miles, per hour. The stream, therefore, has been literally bearded by commerce, and has become one of its principal highways. It is because it is a highway of commerce that the Alabama now finds herself in it. Nor was she long in it, before the travellers on the highway began to come along.

Early on the morning of the 3d of October, two sail were simultaneously reported by the look-out at the mast-head--one right ahead, and the other on the lee-bow. As both the ships were standing in our direction, there was no necessity for a chase. We had nothing to do but await their approach. As their hulls were lifted above the horizon, we could see that they were fine, large ships, with a profusion of tapering spars and white canvas. We at once pronounced them American; and so, after a little, they proved to be. They were, in fact, the avant courriers of the "junk fleet," for which we had come to look. The wind was light, and they came on, with all their sails set, from truck to rail. We, on our part, put on an air of perfect indifference. We made no change in our sail, and it was not necessary to alter our course, as the strangers would pass sufficiently near us, unless they altered their own courses, which they did not seem inclined to do. They apparently had no suspicion of our real character. We did not hoist any colors, until the vessels were nearly abreast of us, and only a few hundred yards distant, when, suddenly wheeling, we fired a gun, and hoisted the Confederate flag. The capture of these two ships must have been a perfect surprise to them, judging by the confusion that was visible on board. There was a running about the decks, and an evident indecision for a few moments, as to what was best to be done; but it did not take the masters long to take an intelligent view of the "situation." There was nothing to be done, but surrender; and this they did, by hoisting their colors, and heaving to their ships.

We now shortened sail, and laying the maintopsail to the mast, lowered a couple of quarter boats, and boarded the prizes. One of them proved to be the Brilliant, from New York, for London, laden with flour and grain; and the other, the Emily Farnum, from New York, for Liverpool, with a similar cargo. The cargo of the Farnum being properly documented as neutral property, I released her on ransom-bond, and converting her into a cartel, sent on board of her all my prisoners, of whom I had fifty or sixty on board the Alabama, besides those just captured in the Brilliant. The latter ship was burned, and her destruction must have disappointed a good many holders of bills of exchange, drawn against her cargo, as this was large and valuable. The owners of the ship have since put in a claim, in that little bill, which Mr. Seward has pressed with so little effect hitherto against the British Government, for indemnity for the "depredations of the Alabama," for the ship alone, and the freight-moneys which they lost by her destruction, to the amount of $93,000. The cargo was probably even more valuable than the ship.

I made a positive stipulation with the Farnum, upon releasing her, that she should continue her voyage to Liverpool, and not put back into any American port; the master pledging me his word that he would comply with it. My object was, of course, to prevent him from giving news of me to the enemy. He had no sooner passed out of sight, however, steering his course for Liverpool, than he dodged and put into Boston, and reported me. This being nothing more than a clever "Yankee trick," of course there was no harm done the master's honor.

I was much moved by the entreaties of the master of the Brilliant to spare his ship. He was a hard-working seaman, who owned a one third interest in her. He had built her, and was attached to her, and she represented all his worldly goods. But I was forced again to steel my heart. He was, like the other masters who had remonstrated with me, in the same boat with the "political rascals," who had egged on the war; and I told him he must look to those rascals for redress. The ship made a brilliant bonfire, lighting up the Gulf Stream, for many miles around. Having been set on fire near night, and the wind falling to nearly a calm, we remained in sight of the burning wreck nearly all night.

Among the many slanders against me, to which the Northern press gave currency during the war, it was stated, that I decoyed ships into my power, by setting fire to my prizes at night, and remaining by them in ambuscade. Of course, when seamen discover a ship on fire at sea they rush, with all their manly sympathies aroused, to the rescue of their comrades, who are supposed to be in danger; but if they should find, it was said, that they were waylaid, and captured, none would go to the rescue in future, and thus many seamen would perish. It can scarcely be necessary for me to say, that I never purposely lay by a burning ship, by night, or by day, longer than to see her well on fire. The substantial answer to the slander is, that I never captured a ship, under the circumstances stated.

For the next few days we had fine, clear weather, and chased and overhauled a number of neutral ships, most of them out of New York, and bound for Europe, laden with grain. The English, French, Prussian, Hamburg, Oldenham, and other flags were fast monopolizing the enemy's carrying trade, and enjoying a rich harvest. These were not the sort of "junks" that we were in quest of, but they compensated us, somewhat, for the time and labor lost in chasing and boarding them, by supplying us with late newspapers of the enemy, and giving us valuable information concerning the progress of the war.

On the afternoon of the 7th of October, the weather being fine, and the breeze light, we chased and captured the American bark, Wave Crest, from New York, bound for Cardiff, in Wales, with flour and grain. In the language of the enemy, we "plundered her," that is, we received on board from her, such articles as we needed, and after having made use of her for a while, as a target, at which to practise the men at the battery, we burned her.

Filing away, we again made sail to the north-west. We were now, in about latitude 41 deg., and longitude 54 deg., and were working our way, under easy sail, toward the coasts of the United States. Just before nightfall, on the same afternoon, another sail was cried from aloft, and we made all sail in pursuit, immediately, anxious to draw sufficiently near the chase before dark, to prevent losing sight of her. By this time, the wind, which had been very light all day, had freshened to a stiff breeze, and the chase, soon perceiving our object, spread a cloud of canvas, with studding-sails "alow and aloft," in the effort to escape. She had seen the fire of the burning Wave Crest, and knew full well the doom that awaited her, if she were overtaken. As night threw her mantle over the scene, the moon, nearly at the full, rose with unusual splendor and lighted up the sea for the chase; and a beautiful, picturesque chase it was. Although it lasted several hours, our anxiety as to the result was relieved, in a very short time, for we could see, from the first, that we gained upon the fleeing ship, although her master practised every stratagem known to the skilful seaman. As soon as we approached sufficiently near to get a good view of her through our excellent night-glasses, which, in the bright moonlight, brought out all her features almost as distinctly as if we had been viewing them by the rays of the sun, we discovered that she was one of those light, and graceful hermaphrodite brigs, that is, a rig between the brig and the schooner, so peculiarly American. Her sails were beautifully cut, well hoisted, and the clews well spread; her masts were long and tapering, and her yards more square than usual. There was just sea enough on, to give her, now and then, a gentle motion, as she rose upon a wave, and scudded forward with renewed impulse. Her sails looked not unlike so many silver wings, in the weird moonlight, and with a little effort of the imagination, it would not have been difficult to think of her as some immense water-fowl, which had been scared from its roost and flown seaward for safety.

I sat astride of the hammock-cloth on the weather-quarter, and watched the beautiful apparition during the whole chase, only taking off my eye, now and then, to give some order to the officer of the deck, or to cast it admiringly upon the buckling and bending masts and spars of my own beautiful ship, as she sped forward, with all the animation of a living thing, in pursuit. The poor little, affrighted fawn ahead of us, how its heart must have gone pit-a-pat, as it cast its timid eyes behind it, and saw its terrible pursuer looming up larger, and larger, and coming nearer and nearer! Still there might be some hope. The pursuing vessel might be some peaceful merchant-ship, bound on the same errand of commerce with herself, and only trying heels with her, in sport, over these dancing waves, and by this bright moonlight. Alas! the hope was short-lived; for presently, in the stillness of near midnight, a flash was seen, followed by the sound of a booming gun, and there could no longer be any doubt, that the pursuer was a ship of war, and most likely a Confederate. Halliards and tacks, and sheets were let fly on board the brigantine, and as soon as her seamen could gather in the folds of the flapping sails, and haul up clew-garnets, her helm was put down, and she rounded gracefully to the now whistling wind, with fore-topsail aback. So rapidly had this been done, and so close was the Alabama upon the chase, that we had just time to sheer clear of her by a little trick of the helm. Our own sail was now shortened, and the boarding-officer dispatched on board the prize.

She proved to be the Dunkirk, from New York, with a cargo of grain for Lisbon. There being no evidence of neutral ownership of the cargo, among the papers, she was burned, as soon as her crew could be transferred to the Alabama. We made two novel captures on board this ship--one was a deserter from the Sumter, a worthless sailor out of one of the Northern States, whom we afterward discharged from the Confederate Naval service, in disgrace, instead of hanging him, as we might have done under our Articles of War; and the other a number of very neatly put up tracts in the Portuguese language; our Northern brethren dealing in a little piety as well as trade. These tracts had been issued by that pious corporation, the "American Tract Society," of New York, whose fine fat offices are filled with sleek, well-fed parsons, of the Boynton stripe, whose business it is to prey upon the credulity of kind-hearted American women, and make a pretence of converting the heathen! On the cover of these tracts was printed the following directions, as to how the doses were to be taken. "Portuguese tracts, from the 'American Tract Society,' for distribution among Portuguese passengers, and to give, upon the coast, to visitors from the shore, &c. When in port, please keep conspicuously on the cabin-table, for all comers to read: but be very careful not to take any ashore, as the laws do not allow it." A pen had been run through the last injunction, as though the propagandists of "grand moral ideas" had become a little bolder since the war, and were determined to thrust their piety down the throats of the Portuguese, whether they would or not. If there should be any attempt now, on the part of poor old Portugal, to seize the unlawful distributor of the tracts, a gunboat or two would set the matter right. A little farther on, on the same cover, was the following instruction: "As may be convenient, please report, (by letter if necessary,) anything of interest which may occur, in connection with the distribution; also take any orders for Bibles, and forward to John S. Pierson, Marine Agent, New York Bible Society, No. 7 Beekman Street."

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Chapter XXXV

CAPRICIOUS WEATHER OF THE GULF STREAM--CAPTURE OF THE PACKET-SHIP TONAWANDA, THE MANCHESTER, AND THE LAMPLIGHTER--A CYCLONE.

Though the month of October is remarkable for its fine weather, along the American coast, yet here in the Gulf Stream, we had a constant succession of changes, the wind going regularly around the compass every two or three days, and thick, rainy weather predominating. We were now, besides, experiencing a south-easterly current of about two knots per hour, and as we were bound to the north-west, and frequently had the wind, as well as the current ahead, we made but slow progress. On the second day after capturing the Dunkirk, the familiar cry of "sail ho!" again came ringing from the mast-head, and pretty soon a large ship loomed up above the horizon. We gave chase, and, just before sunset, came up with a fine packet-ship, whose deck, we could see, was crowded with passengers. This was a somewhat unusual spectacle--a sailing ship filled with passengers for Europe, during the month of October. Since the introduction of the steam-packet, but few passengers, except emigrants, take passage in a sailing ship, and the current of emigration sets the other way.

Upon being boarded, the ship proved to be the Tonawanda, of, and from Philadelphia, bound to Liverpool. Some of the passengers were foreigners, fleeing from the tyranny, and outrages of person and property, which had overtaken them, under the reign of the Puritan, in the "land of the free, and the home of the brave," and others were patriotic Puritans themselves running away from the "City of Brotherly Love," to escape the draft. We captured the Tonawanda, and the question immediately presented itself what should we do with her? There being no claim, by any neutral, for the cargo, both ship and cargo were good prize of war, but unfortunately we could not burn the ship, without encumbering ourselves with the passengers; and thirty of the sixty of these were women and children! The men we might have disposed of, without much inconvenience, but it was not possible to convert the Alabama into a nursery, and set the stewards to serving pap to the babies. Although I made it a rule never to bond a ship if I could burn her, I released the Tonawanda on bond, though there was no legal impediment to her being burned. I kept her cruising in company with me, however, for a day or two, hoping that I might fall in with some other ship of the enemy, that might be less valuable, or might have a neutral cargo on board, to which I could transfer the passengers, and thus be enabled to burn her. But here, again, her owners were in luck, for the finest, and most valuable ships, with cargoes entirely uncovered, would persist in crossing my path.

On the second day after the capture of the Tonawanda--that ship being still in our company, with a prize crew on board--the weather inclining to be overcast, and the breeze light--a ship was reported, at early daylight, on our weather-quarter. It was another heavy ship of the "junk fleet," and as we were lying right across her path, we had nothing to do but await her approach. She came along under a cloud of canvas, though, as the wind was light, it took her some three or four hours to come up with us. To disarm her of suspicion, I hoisted the American colors, and caused my prize to do the same. She naturally concluded that the two ships were "visiting," which ships sometimes do at sea, when the wind is light, and there is not much time lost by the operation, and came on without so much as shifting her helm, or stirring tack or sheet. When she had approached sufficiently near, I invited her, too, to visit me; my card of invitation being a blank cartridge, and a change of flags. She hove to at once, and, upon being boarded, proved to be the ship Manchester from New York, bound to Liverpool. I now threw the Manchester's crew, together with the crews of the Wave Crest, and Dunkirk, on board the Tonawanda, as being the less valuable ship of the two, and permitted the latter to depart; but before doing so, I took from on board of her, one of her passengers. This was a likely negro lad of about seventeen years of age--a slave until he was twenty-one, under the laws of Delaware. This little State, all of whose sympathies were with us, had been ridden over, rough-shod, by the Vandals north of her, as Maryland afterward was, and was arrayed on the side of the enemy. I was obliged, therefore, to treat her as such. The slave was on his way to Europe, in company with his master. He came necessarily under the laws of war, and I brought him on board the Alabama, where we were in want of good servants, and sent him to wait on the ward-room mess.

The boy was a little alarmed at first, but, when he saw kindly faces beaming upon him, and heard from his new masters, and the servants of the mess, some words of encouragement, he became reassured, and, in the course of a few days, was not only at home, but congratulated himself on the exchange he had made. He became, more especially, the servant of Dr. Galt, and there at once arose, between the Virginia gentleman and the slave boy, that sympathy of master and servant, which our ruder people of the North find it so impossible to comprehend. Faithful service, respect, and attachment followed protection and kind treatment, and the slave was as happy as the day was long. David soon became to Galt what Bartelli was to me--indispensable--and the former was really as free as the latter, except only in the circumstance that he could not change masters. I caused his name to be entered on the books of the ship, as one of the crew, and allowed him the pay of his grade. In short, no difference was made between him and the white waiters of the mess. His condition was in every respect bettered; though, I doubt not, a howl went up over his capture, as soon as it became known to the pseudo-philanthropists of the North, who know as little about the negro and his nature, as they do about the people of the South.

It was pleasant to regard the affection which this boy conceived for Galt, and the pride he took in serving him. As he brought the doctor's camp-stool for him to the "bridge," placed it in the cosiest corner he could find, and ran off to bring him a light for his cigar, his eyes would dilate, and his "ivories" shine. Dave served us during the whole cruise. He went on shore in all parts of the world, knew that the moment he touched the shore he was at liberty to depart, if he pleased, and was tampered with by sundry Yankee Consuls, but always came back to us. He seemed to have the instinct of deciding between his friends and his enemies.

The following correspondence took place between the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, and Earl Russell, the British Foreign Secretary, on the occasion of the two last captures:--

TO THE RT. HON. EARL RUSSELL, ETC., ETC.:--

MY LORD:--I have been requested by the Council of this Chamber to inform you that they have had brought before them the facts of the destruction at sea, in one case, and of seizure and release under ransom-bond in another case, of British property on board Federal vessels, (the Manchester and the Tonawanda,) by an armed cruiser sailing under the Confederate flag, the particulars of which have been already laid before your Lordship. As the question is one of serious importance to the commerce of this country, the Council wish me most respectfully to solicit the favor of your Lordship's acquainting them, for the information of the mercantile community, what, in the opinion of her Majesty's Government, is the position of the owners of such property, in these and other similar cases. Submitting this question with every respect to your Lordship, I have the honor to be, my Lord, your most obedient humble servant,

THOMAS CHILTON, President Chamber of Commerce.

LIVERPOOL, 8th Nov., 1862.

TO THOMAS CHILTON, ESQ., CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, LIVERPOOL.

SIR:--I am directed by Earl Russell to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 8th inst., calling attention to the recent proceedings of the armed vessel Alabama, with regard to British property on board the Federal vessels Manchester and Tonawanda, and requesting the opinion of her Majesty's Government with regard to the position of the owners of such property in those and other similar cases which may arise; and I am to request that you will inform the Council of the Chamber of Commerce that the matter is under the consideration of her Majesty's Government.

I am, sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

E. HAMMOND.

FOREIGN OFFICE, Nov. 7th, 1862.

After the usual period of gestation, Earl Russell informed his questioners, that British owners of property, on board of Federal ships, alleged to have been wrongfully captured by Confederate cruisers, were in the same position as any other neutral owners shipping in enemy's bottoms during a war; they must look for redress to the country of the captor. But these British owners did what was more sensible--they withdrew, in due time, their freights from the enemy's ships; and British and other neutral ships soon became the carriers of the American trade. It is claimed in the above correspondence, that there was British property destroyed on board the Manchester. If so, it was the fault of the British owner, in failing to document his property properly, for there was no certificate or other paper found on board that ship, claiming that any part of the cargo belonged to neutrals.

The Manchester brought us a batch of late New York papers, and I was much obliged to the editors of the New York "Herald," for valuable information. I learned from them where all the enemy's gunboats were, and what they were doing; which, of course, enabled me to take better care of the Alabama, than I should otherwise have been enabled to do. The Americans effected many reforms in the art of war during our late struggle. Perhaps this was the only war in which the newspapers ever explained, beforehand, all the movements of armies, and fleets, to the enemy.

The reader will observe, that I received my mails quite regularly, now, from the United States. They were sometimes daily, and rarely less frequent than tri-weekly. I appointed my excellent clerk, Mr. Breedlove Smith, whom I am glad to have this opportunity of introducing to the reader, postmaster, and he delivered the mail regularly to the officers and crew--that is to say, the newspaper and periodical mail--the letters I considered as addressed to myself personally. They might give valuable information of the objects and designs of the enemy, and throw some light upon the true ownership of cargoes, falsely documented. I therefore took the liberty, which the laws of war gave me, of breaking the seals. There were some curious developments made in some of these letters, nor were they all written on business. Sometimes, as I would break a seal, a photograph would tumble out, and the first few lines of the letter would inform me of a tender passion that was raging in the heart of the writer. These epistles, photographs, and all, were always pitched, with a pshaw! into the waste-paper basket, and were soon afterward consigned by Bartelli to the sea. So that the fair writers--and some of the writers were fair if I might judge by their portraits--may rest satisfied that their secrets are safe. My young officers became so accustomed to their morning's newspaper, as they sat down to the breakfast-table, that if it was not forthcoming, they would wonder "what the d----l Alabama had been about, the past night, that she had not gotten hold of a mail?"

For two or three days after capturing the Manchester, we fell in with nothing but neutral vessels. When the nationality of these was distinctly marked, as generally it was, we forbore to chase them. The weather began now to give unmistakable signs, of a general disturbance of the atmospheric machine. On the 15th of October, we captured our next ship. It was blowing half a gale of wind, with a thick atmosphere, and rain-squalls. We were lying to, under topsails, when she was reported. As in the case of the Manchester, we had only to await her approach, for we were still in the beaten track of these lone travellers upon the sea. She came along quite fast, before the gale, and when within reach, we hove her to, with the accustomed gun. She proved, upon being boarded, to be the bark Lamplighter, of Boston, from New York, for Gibraltar, with a cargo of tobacco. There was no attempt to cover the cargo, and when we had removed the crew to the Alabama, we burned her.

From the frequent mention which has been made of "uncovered cargoes," the reader will see how careless the enemy's merchants were, and how little they dreamed of disaster. They had not yet heard of the Alabama, except only that she had escaped from Liverpool, as the "290." They looked upon her, yet, as a mere myth, which it was not necessary to take any precautions against. But the reader will see how soon their course will change, and in what demand British Consular certificates, vouching for the neutrality of good American cargoes, will be, in the good city of Gotham, toward which, the Alabama is slowly working her way.

We captured the Lamplighter early in the day, and it was well for us she came along when she did. If she had delayed her arrival a few hours, we should probably not have been able to board her, so much had the gale increased, and the sea risen. For the next few days, as the reader will speedily see, we had as much as we could do to take care of ourselves, without thinking of the enemy, or his ships. We had a fearful gale to encounter. As this gale was a cyclone, and the first really severe gale that the Alabama had met with, it is worthy of a brief description. We begin, in our generation, to have some definite knowledge of the atmospheric laws. To our ancestors, of only a generation or two back, these laws were almost a sealed book. It is now well ascertained, that all the great hurricanes which sweep over the seas, are cyclones; that is, circular gales, revolving around an axis, or vortex, at the same time that they are travelling in a given direction. These gales all have their origin in warm latitudes, or, as has been prettily said, by an officer of the Dutch Navy writing on the subject, they "prefer to place their feet in warm water." They do not, however, confine themselves to the places of their origin, but, passing out of the tropics, sweep over large tracts of extra-tropical seas. These circular gales are the great regulators, or balance-wheels, as it were, of the atmospheric machine. They arise in seasons of atmospheric disturbance, and seem necessary to the restoration of the atmospheric equilibrium.

In the East Indian and China seas, the cyclone is called a typhoon. It prevails there with even more destructive effect than in the western hemisphere. It takes its origin during the change of the monsoons. Monsoons are periodical winds, which blow one half of the year from one direction--the north-east for example--and then change, and blow the other half of the year, from the opposite direction, the south-west. When these monsoons are changing, there is great disturbance in the atmospheric equilibrium. A battle of the winds, as it were, takes place; the out-going wind struggling for existence, and the in-coming wind endeavoring to throttle it, and take its place. Calms, whirlwinds, water-spouts, and heavy and drenching rains set in; the black, wild-looking clouds, sometimes rent and torn, sweeping with their heavy burdens of vapor over the very surface of the sea. Now, the out-going, or dying monsoon will recede, for days together, its enemy, the in-coming monsoon, greedily advancing to occupy the space left vacant. The retreating wind will then rally, regain its courage, and drive back, at least for a part of the way, the pursuing wind. In this way, the two will alternate for weeks, each watching the other as warily, as if they were opposing armies. It is during these struggles, when the atmosphere is unhinged, as it were, that the typhoon makes its awful appearance. Every reader is familiar with the phenomenon of the miniature whirlwind, which he has so often seen sweep along a street or road, for a short distance, and then disappear; the want of local equilibrium in the atmosphere, which gave rise to it, having been restored.

These little whirlwinds generally occur at street-corners, or at cross-roads, and are produced by the meeting of two winds. When these winds meet, the stronger will bend the weaker, and a whirl will ensue. The two winds still coming on, the whirl will be increased, and thus a whirlwind is formed, which immediately begins to travel--not at random, of course, but in the direction of least pressure. The meeting of two currents of water, which form a whirlpool, may be used as another illustration. It is just so, that the typhoon is formed. It steps in as a great conservator of the peace, to put an end to the atmospherical strife which has been going on, and to restore harmony to nature. It is a terrible scourge whilst it lasts; the whole heavens seem to be in disorder, and that which was only a partial battle between outposts of the aerial armies, has now become a general engagement. The great whirl sweeps over a thousand miles or more, and when it has ceased, nature smiles again; the old monsoon has given up the ghost, and the new monsoon has taken its place. All will be peace now until the next change--the storms that will occur in the interval, being more or less local. We have monsoons in the western hemisphere, as well as in the eastern, though they are much more partial, both in space and duration.

The cyclones which sweep over the North Atlantic are generated, as has been remarked, to the eastward of the West India Islands--somewhere between them and the coast of Brazil. They occur in August, September, and October--sometimes, indeed, as early as the latter part of July. In these months, the sun has drawn after him, into the northern hemisphere, the south-east trade-winds of the South Atlantic. These trade-winds are now struggling with the north-east trade-winds, which prevail in these seas, for three fourths of the year, for the mastery. We have, thus, another monsoon struggle going on; and the consequence of this struggle is the cyclone. The reader may recollect the appearances of the weather, noted by me, some chapters back, when we were in these seas, in the Sumter, in July and August, of 1861; to wit, the calms, light, baffling winds, water-spouts, and heavy rains.

If the reader will pay a little attention to the diagram on page 473, it will assist him, materially, in comprehending the nature of the storm into which the Alabama had now entered. The outer circle represents the extent of the storm; the inner circle, the centre or vortex; the arrows along the inner edge of the outer circle represent the direction, or gyration of the wind, and the dotted line represents the course travelled by the storm. The figures marked, 1, 2, and 3, represent the position of the Alabama, in the different stages of the storm, as it passed over her; the arrow-heads on the figures representing the head of the ship.

If the reader, being in the northern hemisphere, will turn his face toward the sun, at his rising, and watch his course for a short time, he will observe that this course is from left to right. As the course of the arrows in the figure is from right to left, the reader observes that the gyration of the wind, in the storm, is against the course of the sun. This is an invariable law in both hemispheres; but, in the southern hemisphere, the reader will not fail to remark, that the gyration of the wind is in the opposite direction from its gyration in the northern hemisphere, for the reason, that, to an observer in the southern hemisphere the sun appears to be moving, not from left to right, but from right to left. Whilst, therefore, the storm, in the northern hemisphere, gyrates from right to left, in the southern hemisphere, it gyrates from left to right; both gyrations being against the course of the sun.

This is a curious phenomenon, which has, thus far, puzzled all the philosophers. It is a double puzzle; first, why the storm should gyrate always in the same direction, and secondly, why this gyration should be different in the two hemispheres. The law seems to be so subtle, as utterly to elude investigation. There is a curious phenomenon, in the vegetable world, which seems to obey this law of storms, and which I do not recollect ever to have seen alluded to by any writer. It may be well known to horticulturists, for aught that I know, but it attracted my attention, in my own garden, for the first time, since the war. It is, that all creeping vines, and tendrils, when they wind themselves around a pole, invariably wind themselves from right to left, or against the course of the sun! I was first struck with the fact, by watching, from day to day, the tender unfolding of the Lima bean--each little creeper, as it came forth, feeling, as with the instinct of animal life, for the pole, and then invariably bending around it, in the direction mentioned. I have a long avenue of these plants, numbering several hundred poles, and upon examining them all, I invariably found the same result. I tried the experiment with some of these little creepers, of endeavoring to compel them to embrace the pole from left to right, or with the course of the sun, but in vain. In the afternoon I would gather blades of grass, and tie some of the tendrils to the poles, in a way to force them to disobey the law, but when I went to inspect them, the following morning, I would invariably find, that the obedient little plants had turned back, and taken the accustomed track! What is the subtle influence which produces this wonderful result? May it not be the same law which rides on the whirlwind, and directs the storm?

The cyclone, of which I am writing, must have travelled a couple of thousand miles, before it reached the Alabama. Its approach had been heralded, as the reader has seen, by several days of bad weather; and, on the morning of the gale, which was on the 16th of October, the barometer--that faithful sentinel of the seaman--began to settle very rapidly. We had been under short sail before, but we now took the close reefs in the topsails, which tied them down to about one third of their original size, got up, and bent the main storm-staysail, which was made of the stoutest No. 1 canvas, and scarcely larger than a pocket-handkerchief, swung in the quarter-boats, and passed additional lashings around them; and, in short, made all the requisite preparations for the battle with the elements which awaited us. If the reader will cast his eye upon the diagram, at Alabama, No. 1, he will see that the ship has her head to the eastward, that her yards are braced up on the starboard tack, and that she took the wind, as indicated by the arrows, from S. to S. S. E.

The ship is lying still, and the storm, which the reader sees, by the dotted line, is travelling to the north-east, is approaching her. She was soon enveloped in its folds; and the winds, running around the circle, in that mad career represented by the arrows, howled, and whistled, and screeched around her like a thousand demons. She was thrown over, several streaks, and the waves began to assault her with sledge-hammer blows, and occasionally to leap on board of her, flooding her decks, and compelling us to stand knee-deep in water. By this time, we had furled the fore-topsail; the fore-staysail had been split into ribbons; and whilst I was anxiously debating with myself, whether I should hold on to the main-topsail, a little longer, or start its sheets, and let it blow to pieces--for it would have been folly to think of sending men aloft in such a gale, to furl it--the iron bolt on the weather-quarter, to which the standing part of the main-brace was made fast, gave way; away went the main-yard, parted at the slings, and, in a trice, the main-topsail was whipped into fragments, and tied into a hundred curious knots. We were now under nothing but the small storm-staysail, described; the topgallant yards had been sent down from aloft, there was very little top-hamper exposed to the wind, and yet the ship was pressed over and over, until I feared she would be thrown upon her beam-ends, or her masts swept by the board. The lee-quarter-boat was wrenched from the davits, and dashed in pieces; and, as the sea would strike the ship, forward or aft, she would tremble in every fibre, as if she had been a living thing, in fear of momentary dissolution.

But she behaved nobly, and I breathed easier after the first half hour of the storm. All hands were, of course, on deck, with the hatches battened down, and there was but little left for us to do, but to watch the course of the storm, and to ease the ship, all it was possible to ease her, with the helm. Life-lines had been rove, fore and aft the decks, by my careful first lieutenant, to prevent the crew from being washed overboard, and it was almost as much as each man could do, to look out for his own personal safety.

The storm raged thus violently for two hours, the barometer settling all the while, until it reached 28.64. It then fell suddenly calm. Landsmen have heard of an "ominous" calm, but this calm seemed to us almost like the fiat of death. We knew, at once, that we were in the terrible vortex of a cyclone, from which so few mariners have ever escaped to tell the tale! Nothing else could account for the suddenness of the calm, coupled with the lowness of the barometer. We knew that when the vortex should pass, the gale would be renewed, as suddenly as it had ceased, and with increased fury, and that the frail little Alabama--for indeed she looked frail and small, now, amid the giant seas that were rising in a confused mass around her, and threatening, every moment, to topple on board of her, with an avalanche of water that would bury her a hundred fathoms deep--might be dashed in a thousand pieces in an instant. I pulled out my watch, and noted the time of the occurrence of the calm, and causing one of the cabin-doors to be unclosed, I sent an officer below to look at the barometer. He reported the height already mentioned--28.64. If the reader will cast his eye upon the diagram again--at figure No. 2--he will see where we were at this moment. The Alabama's head now lies to the south-east--she having "come up" gradually to the wind, as it hauled--and she is in the south-eastern hemisphere of the vortex. The scene was the most remarkable I had ever witnessed. The ship, which had been pressed over, only a moment before, by the fury of the gale as described, had now righted, and the heavy storm staysail, which, notwithstanding its diminutive size, had required two stout tackles to confine it to the deck, was now, for want of wind to keep it steady, jerking these tackles about as though it would snap them in pieces, as the ship rolled to and fro! The aspect of the heavens was appalling. The clouds were writhing and twisting, like so many huge serpents engaged in combat, and hung so low, in the thin air of the vortex, as almost to touch our mast-heads. The best description I can give of the sea, is that of a number of huge watery cones--for the waves seemed now in the diminished pressure of the atmosphere in the vortex to jut up into the sky, and assume a conical shape--that were dancing an infernal reel, played by some necromancer. They were not running in any given direction, there being no longer any wind to drive them, but were jostling each other, like drunken men in a crowd, and threatening, every moment, to topple, one upon the other.

With watch in hand I noticed the passage of the vortex. It was just thirty minutes in passing. The gale had left us, with the wind from the south-west; the ship, the moment she emerged from the vortex, took the wind from the north-west. We could see it coming upon the waters. The disorderly seas were now no longer jostling each other; the infernal reel had ended; the cones had lowered their late rebellious heads, as they felt the renewed pressure of the atmosphere, and were being driven, like so many obedient slaves, before the raging blast. The tops of the waves were literally cut off by the force of the wind, and dashed hundreds of yards, in blinding spray. The wind now struck us "butt and foremost," throwing the ship over in an instant, as before, and threatening to jerk the little storm-sail from its bolt-ropes. It was impossible to raise one's head above the rail, and difficult to breathe for a few seconds. We could do nothing but cower under the weather bulwarks, and hold on to the belaying pins, or whatever other objects presented themselves, to prevent being dashed to leeward, or swept overboard. The gale raged, now, precisely as long as it had done before we entered the vortex--two hours--showing how accurately Nature had drawn her circle.

At the end of this time, the Alabama found herself in position No. 3. The reader will observe that she is still on the starboard tack, and that from east, she has brought her head around to nearly west. The storm is upon the point of passing away from her. I now again sent an officer below, to inspect the barometer, and he reported 29.70; the instrument having risen a little more than an inch in two hours! This, alone, is evidence of the violence of the storm. During the whole course of the storm, a good deal of rain had fallen. It is the rain which adds such fury to the wind. These storms come to us, as has been said, from the tropics, and the winds, by which they are engendered, are highly charged with vapor. In the course of taking up this vapor from the sea, the winds take up, along with it, a large quantity of latent heat, or heat whose presence is not indicated by the thermometer. As the raging cyclone is moving onward in its path, the winds begin to part with their burden--it begins to rain. The moment the vapor is condensed into rain, the latent heat, which was taken up with the vapor, is liberated, and the consequence is, the formation of a furnace in the sky, as it were, overhanging the raging storm, and travelling along with it. The more rain there falls, the more latent heat there escapes; the more latent heat there escapes, the hotter the furnace becomes; and the hotter the furnace, the more furiously the wind races around the circle, and rushes into the upper air to fill the vacuum, and restore the equilibrium.

In four hours and a half, from the commencement of the gale, the Alabama was left rolling, and tumbling about in the confused sea, which the gale had left behind it, with scarcely wind enough to fill the sails, which, by this time, we had gotten upon her, to keep her steady. Little more remains to be said of the cyclone. If the reader will take a last look at the diagram, he will see how it is, that the wind, which appears to him to change, has not changed in reality. The wind, from first to the last, is travelling around the circle, changing not at all. It is the passage of the circle over the ship--or over the observer upon the land--which causes it apparently to change. The Alabama lay still during the whole gale, not changing her position, perhaps, half a mile. As the circle touched her, she took the wind from S. to S. S. E., and when it had passed over her, she had the wind at north-west. In the intermediate time, the wind had apparently hauled first to one, and then to the other, of all the intermediate points of the compass, and yet it had not changed a hair's breadth.

The weather did not become fine, for several days after the gale. On the following night, it again became thick and cloudy, and the wind blew very fresh from the south-west. The sea, though it had somewhat subsided, was still very rough, and the night was so dark, that the officer of the deck could not see half the length of the ship in any direction. The south-west wind was a fair wind from the enemy's ports, to Europe, and we kept a very bright look-out, to prevent ourselves from being run over, by some heavy ship of commerce, hurrying, with lightning speed, before wind and sea.

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Chapter XXXVI

THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF SHIPS--CAPTURE OF THE LAFAYETTE--DECREE OF THE ADMIRALTY COURT ON BOARD THE ALABAMA IN HER CASE, AND IN THAT OF THE LAURETTA--THE CRITICISMS OF THE NEW YORK PRESS--FARTHER PROOF OF THE ROTARY NATURE OF THE WIND--THE LAURETTA CAPTURED--THE CRENSHAW CAPTURED--THE NEW YORK CHAMBER OF COMMERCE CRIES ALOUD IN PAIN--CAPTURE OF THE BARON DE CASTINE, AND THE LEVI STARBUCK--CAPTURE OF THE T. B. WALES--LADY PRISONERS.

The day after the gale recorded in the last chapter, we set all hands at work repairing damages--the carpenters fishing, and the boatswain and his gang refitting the broken main-yard; the gunners putting their battery in order, the sailmaker repairing sails, and the old signal-quartermaster "breaking out" his signal-lockers, which had been invaded by the sea-water, and airing his flags. The latter was enabled, by this time, to make quite a display of Yankee flags, from his signal-halliards--the Alabama having captured seventeen ships in six weeks. As the Yankee ships now began to wear, out of pure patriotism, (though they were out of the war, and profitably chasing the honest penny,) the biggest sort of "flaunting lies," there were several bagsful of these flags.

We began now to overhaul sails again. From the 16th to the 20th of October, we chased and boarded nine, all of which were neutral! We were, in fact, in an American sea--the Gulf Stream being the thoroughfare of American and West Indian commerce to Europe--and yet the American flag was beginning to disappear from it. Such of the Federal ships as could not obtain employment from the Government, as transports, or be sold under neutral flags, were beginning to rot at the wharves of the once thrifty sea-ports of the Great Republic. Our "nautical enterprise" was beginning to tell on the enemy, and if we had had the ability to imitate Massachusetts, in the war of the first revolution, in the way of putting forth armed cruisers, to prey upon the enemy's commerce, the said enemy would not have had so much as a rope-yarn upon the sea, in the course of twelve months. But at the time of which I am writing, the Alabama and the Florida were the only two Confederate ocean cruisers afloat.

On the 21st of October, we observed in latitude 39 deg. 35', and longitude 63 deg. 26', and on that day, we made our first capture since the gale. We were lying to, as usual, when a large ship was descried, in the north-west, running in our direction. Though the wind was very fresh, she had her royals and fore-topmast studding-sails set, and was, in consequence, running before the wind, with great speed. I shook the reefs out of my own topsails, and prepared to set the topgallant-sails if it should be necessary, and filled away, and moved toward the path of the stranger as she approached, with the English colors at my peak. The fine, large ship, as she ran down to us, presented a beautiful picture--all the more beautiful because we knew her to be Yankee, although she had not yet shown her colors.

We had become now very expert in detecting the nationalities of ships. I had with me a master's mate--Evans--who had a peculiar talent in this respect. He had been a pilot out of Savannah, and had sailed in the Savannah, privateer, at the beginning of the war. He escaped the harsh treatment, and trial for piracy, which, as the reader may recollect, were the fate of the prisoners captured in that little vessel, by being absent in a prize at the time of her capture. He afterward joined me at Liverpool. Whenever I had any doubt about the nationality of a ship, I always sent for Mr. Evans, and putting my telescope in his hand, I would say to him, "Look at that ship," pointing in the given direction, "and tell me to what nation she belongs." A glance of a minute or two was all he required. Lowering his glass at the end of this time, he would say to me, "She is a Yankee, sir," or, "She is not a Yankee," as the case might be; and if she was not a Yankee, he would say, "I think she is English," or French, or Dutch, or whatever other nation to which he supposed her to belong. He sometimes failed, of course, in assigning their proper nationality to neutrals, but his judgment seemed to amount to an instinct, with regard to the question, Yankee, or no Yankee. When he pronounced a ship a Yankee, I was always certain of her. I never knew him to fail, in this particular, but once, and that can scarcely be said to have been a failure. He once mistook a St. John's, New Brunswick-built ship, for an enemy; and the ships built in the British Colonies, on the Yankee border, are such counterparts of American ships, that it is very difficult to distinguish one from the other.

The ship which was now running down for us was, as I have said, a picture, with her masts yielding and swaying to a cloud of sail, her tapering poles shooting skyward, even above her royals, and her well-turned, flaring bows--the latter a distinctive feature of New York-built ships. She came on, rolling gracefully to the sea, and with the largest kind of a "bone in her mouth." She must have suspected something, from our very equivocal attitude in such weather, and in such a place; but she made no change in her course, and was soon under our guns. A blank cartridge brought her to the wind. If the scene was beautiful before, it was still more so now. If she had been a ship of war, full of men, and with hands stationed at sheets, halliards, and braces, she could not have shortened sail much more rapidly, or have rounded more promptly and gracefully to the wind, with her main topsail aback. Her cloud of canvas seemed to shrivel and disappear, as though it had been a scroll rolled up by an invisible hand. It is true, nothing had been furled, and her light sails were all flying in the wind, confined to the yards only by their clew-lines, but the ship lay as snugly and conveniently for boarding, as I could desire. I frequently had occasion, during my cruises, to admire the seamanship of my enemies. The Yankee is certainly a remarkable specimen of the genus homo. He is at once a duck, and a chicken, and takes to the water, or the land, with equal facility. Providence has certainly designed him for some useful purpose. He is ambitious, restless, scheming, energetic, and has no inconvenient moral nature to restrain him from the pursuit of his interests, be the path to these never so crooked. In the development of material wealth he is unsurpassed, and perhaps this is his mission on this new continent of ours. But he is like the beaver, he works from instinct, and is so avid of gain, that he has no time to enjoy the wealth he produces. Some malicious demon seems to be goading him on, in spite of himself, to continuous and exhausting exertion, which consigns him to the tomb before his time, leaving a "pile" of untouched wealth behind him.

The prize, upon being boarded, proved to be the Lafayette, from New York, laden with grain, chiefly for Irish ports. We learned from newspapers captured on board of her, that news of our capture of the Brilliant and Emily Farnum off the Banks of Newfoundland, had reached the United States, and, as was to be expected, I found, when I came to examine the papers of the Lafayette, plenty of certificates to cover her cargo. In fact, from this time onward, I rarely got hold of an enemy's ship, whose cargo was not certificated all over--oaths for this purpose being apparently as cheap, as the much-derided custom-house oaths, that every ship-master is expected to take, without the least regard to the state of the facts. Upon examination of these certificates, I pronounced them fraudulent, and burned the ship.

As the burning of this vessel, with her cargo nicely "covered," as the shippers had hoped, with British Consular seals and certificates, seemed to warm up the Northern press, and cause it to hurl fresh denunciations of "piracy" against me, I will detain the reader, a moment, from the thread of my narrative, to look a little into the facts. The reader has already been told that I held a regular prize-court on board the Sumter. I did the same thing on board the Alabama, never condemning a ship or cargo, when there was any claim of neutral property, without the most careful, and thorough examination of her papers, and giving to the testimony the best efforts of my judgment. I had every motive not to offend neutrals. We were hoping for an early recognition of our independence, by the principal powers of the earth, and were covetous of the good-will of them all. I had, besides, the most positive instructions from Mr. Mallory, our Secretary of the Navy, to pay the utmost attention and respect to neutral rights.

Referring to the records of "The Confederate States Admiralty Court, held on board the Confederate States steamer Alabama, on the High Seas," I find the following decree entered, in the case of the Lafayette.

"In re LAFAYETTE.

"The ship being under the enemy's flag and register, is condemned. With reference to the cargo, there are certificates, prepared in due form, and sworn to before the British Consul, that it was purchased, and shipped, on neutral account. These ex parte statements are precisely such as every unscrupulous merchant would prepare, to deceive his enemy, and save his property from capture. There are two shipping-houses in the case; that of Craig & Nicoll, and that of Montgomery Bros. Messrs. Craig & Nicoll say, that the grain shipped by them, belongs to Messrs. Shaw & Finlay, and to Messrs. Hamilton, Megault & Thompson, all of Belfast, in Ireland, to which port the ship is bound, but the grain is not consigned to them, and they could not demand possession of it, under the bill of lading. It is, on the contrary, consigned to the order of the shippers; thus leaving the possession, and control of the property, in the hands of the shippers. Farther: The shippers, instead of sending this grain to the pretended owners, in a general ship, on freight, consigned to them, they paying freight, as usual, have chartered the whole ship, and stipulated, themselves, for the payment of all the freights. If this property had been, bona fide, the property of the parties in Belfast, named in the depositions, it would undoubtedly have gone consigned to them, in a bill of lading, authorizing them to demand possession of it, and the agreement with the ship would have been, that the consignees and owners of the property should pay the freight, upon delivery. But even if this property were purchased, as pretended, by Messrs. Craig & Nicoll, for the parties named, still, their not consigning it to them, and delivering them the proper bill of lading, passing the possession, left the property in the possession, and under the dominion of Craig & Nicoll, and as such liable to capture. See 3 Phillimore on International Law, 610, 612, to the effect, that if the goods are going on account of the shipper, or subject to his order or control, they are good prize. They cannot even be sold, and transferred to a neutral, in transitu. They must abide by their condition, at the time of the sailing of the ship.

"The property attempted to be covered by the Messrs. Montgomery Bros., is shipped by Montgomery Bros., of New York, and consigned to Montgomery Bros., in Belfast. Here the consignment is all right. The possession of the property has legally passed to the Belfast house. But when there are two houses of trade doing business as partners, and one of them resides in the enemy's country, the other house, though resident in a neutral country, becomes also enemy, quoad the trade of the house in the enemy's country, and its share in any property belonging to the joint concern is subject to capture, equally with the share of the house in the enemy's country. To this point, see 3 Phillimore, 605. Cargo condemned."

This is the whole case of the Lafayette. As this case was coupled, in the criticisms in the Yankee papers to which I have alluded, and which the reader will see presently, with the case of the Lauretta, not yet captured, I will anticipate the capture of this ship by a few days, that the reader may have the facts also in her case.

"In re LAURETTA.

"The ship being under the enemy's colors and register, is condemned. There are two shippers of the cargo, the house of Chamberlain, Phelps & Co., and Mr. H. J. Burden--all the shippers resident, and doing business in the city of New York. Chamberlain, Phelps & Co., ship 1424 barrels of flour, and a lot of pipe staves, to be delivered at Gibraltar, or Messina, to their own order, and 225 kegs of nails to be delivered at Messina, to Mariano Costarelli. The bill of lading for the flour and staves has the following indorsement, sworn to before a notary: 'State, City, and County of New York: Louis Contencin, being duly sworn, says, that he is clerk with Chamberlain, Phelps & Co., and that part of the merchandise in the within bill of lading is the property of the subjects of the King of Italy.' This certificate is void for uncertainty. It does not separate the property in the bill of lading, and say which of it belongs to the 'subjects of the King of Italy,' and which to the enemy. For aught that appears, 'the subjects' alluded to may own no more than a single pipe-staff apiece. Indeed, they can own nothing, as it does not appear what they own. Further: If the property was identified in the certificate, the 'subjects of the King of Italy' are not. No man--for there is none named--could claim the property under this certificate. It is, therefore, void, for this reason. See 3 Phillimore, 596.

But the flour and staves are consigned to the order of the shippers, and this, alone, would be sufficient to condemn them, even if the articles had been identified, and the proper owners pointed out in the certificate. The possession of the property at the time of the sailing of the ship, must be divested out of the enemy-shipper. See 3 Phillimore, 610, 612, cited in the case of the Lafayette.

The contingent destination of this property, is another pregnant circumstance. It shows that it was intended for a market, and not for any particular neutral owner. It was to be delivered at Gibraltar or Messina, as the shippers might determine, after the sailing of the ship--probably upon advices received by steamer. So much for the claim of Chamberlain, Phelps & Co.

"The property shipped by H. J. Burden, consists of 998 barrels of flour, and 290 boxes of herring, and is consigned to Charles R. Blandy, Esq., at Funchal, Madeira. The shipper makes the following affidavit before the British Consul, in New York: 'That all and singular, the goods specified in the annexed bill of lading, were shipped by H. J. Burden, in the bark Lauretta, for, and on account of, H. J. Burden, subject of her Britannic Majesty.' Mr. Burden may be a very good subject of her Britannic Majesty, but he describes himself as of 42 Beaver Street, New York City, and seems to lose sight of the fact, that his domicile in an enemy's country, for the purposes of trade, makes him, quoad that trade, an enemy. Cargo condemned."

The reader is now in a condition to understand the following criticism, from that very elegant sheet, the New York "Commercial Advertiser," and to appreciate the justice and courtesy with which I was treated by the press of New York, generally.

"THE ALABAMA.

"BRITISH AND ITALIAN PROPERTY DESTROYED--PORTUGAL ALSO INVOLVED.

"The English Authorities Acting.--Important Facts.--Some important facts have just been developed in relation to the operations of the rebel privateer Alabama, and the present and prospective action of the British and other foreign Governments, whose citizens have lost property by the piracies of her commander. The depredations of the vessel involve the rights of no less than three European governments--England, Italy, and Portugal--and are likely to become a subject of special interest to all maritime nations.

"Already the capture and burning of the ship Lafayette, which contained an English cargo, has been the occasion of a correspondence between the British Consul at this port, Mr. Archibald, and Rear-Admiral Milne, commanding the British squadron on the American coast; and it is stated (but we cannot vouch for the truth of the statement) that the Admiral has dispatched three war-vessels in pursuit of the pirate. The Consul has also, we understand, communicated the facts of the case to the British Government and Her Majesty's Minister at Washington. What action will be taken by the British Government, remains to be seen.

"The Lafayette sailed from this port with a cargo of grain for Belfast, Ireland. The grain was owned by two English firms of this city, and the facts were properly certified on the bills of lading under the British national seal. The Lafayette was, however, a Boston vessel, and was commanded by Captain Saunders. The facts of the burning have been published.

"But another case (that of the bark Lauretta) is about to be submitted for the consideration of the British authorities, as well as those of Italy and Portugal. The facts establish a clear case of piracy. The Lauretta, which had on board a cargo consisting principally of flour and staves, was burned by Semmes on the 28th of October. She was bound from this port for the island of Madeira and the port of Messina, in Italy. Nearly a thousand barrels of flour and also a large number of staves were shipped by Mr. H. J. Burden, a British subject residing in this city, to a relative in Funchal, Madeira. The bill of lading bore the British seal affixed by the Consul, to whom the shipper was personally known. The other part of the cargo was shipped by Chamberlain, Phelps & Co., to the order of parties in Messina, and this property was also covered by the Italian Consular certificates.

"The Portuguese Consul at this port also sent a package under seal, to the authorities at Madeira, besides giving a right to enter the port and sending an open bill of lading.

"Captain Wells' account of the manner in which Semmes disposed of these documents, and which he has verified under oath, is not only interesting, but gives an excellent idea of the piratical intentions of the commander of the Alabama.

"The papers of the bark were, at the command of Semmes, taken by Captain Wells on board the Alabama. There was no American cargo, and therefore no American papers, except those of the vessel. These, of course, were not inquired into. Semmes took first the packet which bore the Portuguese seal, and with an air which showed that he did not regard it as of the slightest consequence, ripped it open, and threw it upon the floor, with the remark that 'he did not care a d----n for the Portuguese.' The Italian bill of lading was treated in a similar manner, except that he considered it unworthy even of a remark.

"Taking up the British bill of lading and looking at the seal, Semmes called upon Captain Wells, with an oath, to explain. It was evidently the only one of the three he thought it worth his while to respect.

"'Who is this Burden?' he inquired sneeringly. 'Have you ever seen him?'

"'I am not acquainted with him; but I have seen him once, when he came on board my vessel,' replied Captain Wells.

"'Is he an Englishman--does he look like an Englishman?'

"'Yes,' rejoined the captain.

"'I'll tell you what,' exclaimed the pirate, 'this is a d----d pretty business--it's a d----d Yankee hash, and I'll settle it,'--whereupon he proceeded to rob the vessel of whatever he wanted, including Captain Wells' property to a considerable amount; put the crew in irons; removed them to the Alabama; and concluded by burning the vessel.

"These facts will at once be brought before the British Consul. The preliminary steps have been taken. The facts will also be furnished the Portuguese Consul, who announces his intention of placing them before his Government; and besides whatever action the Italian Consul here may choose to take, the parties in Messina, to whom the property lost on the Lauretta was consigned, will of course do what they can to maintain their own rights. The case is likely to attract more attention than all the previous outrages of the Alabama, inasmuch as property rights of the subjects of other nations are involved, and the real character of Semmes and his crew becomes manifest.

"Some interesting facts are given by Captain Wells in regard to the Alabama, to which, however, we can only make a brief allusion. The officers of the privateer are principally Southern men, but the crew are nearly all English and Irish. They claim that they were shipped by stratagem; that they were told the vessel was going to Nassau, and now they are promised shares in captured property--not only the property taken, but that which is burned, of which Semmes says he keeps an accurate account. The bills are to be paid by the 'Confederate Government,' which Semmes, who enforces discipline only by terrorism, declares will soon achieve its independence. The men suppose they are gaining fortunes--though some of them protest against the cheat which has been practised upon them."

The above is a fair specimen of the average intelligence of Yankee newspapers, on any subject outside of the dirty pool of politics, in which they habitually dabble. I was not quite sure when I burned the Lafayette, that her cargo belonged to the shippers, British merchants resident in New York. The shippers swore that it did not belong to them, but to other parties resident in Ireland, on whose account they had shipped it. I thought they swore falsely, but, as I have said, I was not quite certain. The "Advertiser" sets the matter at rest. It says that I was right. And it claims, with the most charming simplicity, that I was guilty of an act of piracy, in capturing and destroying the property of neutral merchants, domiciled in the enemy's country, and assisting him to conduct his trade! The reader now sees what estimate to put upon all the other balderdash of the article. I presume, the only thing Admiral Milne, and the British Minister at Washington did, was to wonder at the stupidity of the New York "Commercial Advertiser." It is scarcely necessary to say, that Captain Wells of the Lauretta, took a "custom-house" oath, when he swore to the account which the "Advertiser" gives of his interview with me, when I burned his ship. It was a business operation with these Yankees to abuse me, and they performed it in a business-like manner--with oaths and affidavits.

Having captured the Lafayette at nightfall, it was as late as ten P. M. before we got through with the business of "robbing" her--robbing her, in spite of all those nicely contrived certificates, and British consular seals--when we set her on fire. In a few hours, she was a mere beacon-light, upon the sea, marking, as so many other fine ships had marked, the track of the "pirate." Though I have given the reader already a pretty large dose of the meteorology of the Gulf Stream, in which we are still cruising, I cannot forbear to call his attention to other proofs of the rotary character of the winds which prevail along this hot-water river in the sea. From the 2d to the 22d of October, a period of twenty days, the wind had gone nine times entirely around the compass, with the regularity of clock-work. With the exception of the cyclone of the 16th, we had had no regular gale of wind; though the wind frequently blew very fresh, with the barometer sometimes as low as 29.60. These rotary winds were circles of greater or less diameter, obeying the laws of storms, and travelling along in the direction of the current, or about north-east. There was an interval of only a few hours between them, the barometer rising regularly as one circle or whirl departed, and falling as the next approached. I was much struck with the exceeding regularity of the recurrence of this phenomenon. The received impression is, that it is only the great gales, which we call cyclones, or hurricanes, that gyrate. From my observations in the Gulf Stream--and I lay in it, continuously, for something like a month, changing place, in all this time, but a few hundred miles--gyration is the normal condition of the winds in this stream--that even the most gentle winds, when undisturbed by local causes--the proximity of the land, for instance--are gyrating winds, winding around, and around their respective vortices, against the motion of the sun, as we have seen the tendril of the vine to wind around the pole to which it clings.

On the third day after capturing the Lafayette, having chased and overhauled, in the meantime, a number of neutrals, we descried a large schooner, evidently American, bound to the southward, and eastward. We gave chase at once, but as the schooner was to windward of us, a considerable distance, the chase promised to be long, without the aid of steam, and this, for reasons already explained, I was averse to using, though we kept, at all times, banked fires in the furnaces, and warm water in the boilers. The stranger hugged his wind very closely, this being always the best point of sailing with schooners; but this was also the best point of sailing with the Alabama. The reader has seen, that she always put on her seven-league boots, when she had a chance of drawing aft the sheets of those immense trysails of hers. We gained perceptibly, but the wind was falling light, and it was to be feared night would overtake us, before we could bring the chase within reach of our guns. She was still good four miles to windward of us, when I resolved to try the effect of a solid shot from my rifled pivot, on the forecastle. Elevating the gun some ten degrees, we let fly the bolt. It threw up the water in a beautiful jet, within less than half a mile of her! It was enough. The schooner came to the wind, with the Federal colors at her mast-head, and awaited our approach. Upon being boarded, she proved to be the Crenshaw, three days out from New York, and bound for Glasgow, in Scotland.

The Crenshaw was grain-laden, though rather small for a member of the "junk fleet," and there was the usual number of certificates, and British consular seals on board of her, vouching, upon good Yankee oaths, that her cargo was neutral. It was amusing to see how these merchants clung to the British seal, and appealed to the British power, when their grain sacks were in danger. But it was all to no purpose. I would have respected scrupulously any bona fide neutral ownership of property, but I knew all these certificates to be fraudulent. Fraudulent as the transactions were, however, some of the shippers might have imposed upon me, if they had only known how to prepare their vouchers. But they were such bunglers, that they committed the most glaring mistakes. The New York merchant is a pretty sharp fellow, in the matter of shaving paper, getting up false invoices, and "doing" the custom-house; but the laws of nations, which had had little connection, heretofore, with the debit and credit side of his ledger, rather muddled his brain. The Crenshaw's certificates were precisely like so many others I had, by this time, overhauled. They simply stated, that the cargo belonged to "subjects of her Britannic Majesty," without naming them. To quote the certificates literally, they were in these terms: "The goods specified, in the annexed bills of lading, were shipped on board the schooner Crenshaw, for, and on account of subjects of her Britannic Majesty, and the said goods are wholly, and bona fide, the property of British subjects." And when I came to look at the bills of lading, I found that the property was consigned to the order of the shippers. Here was evidently another of those "Yankee hashes," spoken of by the New York "Commercial Advertiser;" or, if it was not a Yankee hash, it was an English hash, gotten up by some "subjects of her Britannic Majesty," who were resident merchants in the enemy's country--whose property the aforesaid "Advertiser" so innocently thought was not subject to capture. For aught that appeared from the certificates, the "subjects" were all resident in New York. And so we did the usual amount of "plundering" on board the Crenshaw, and then consigned her to the flames.

From papers captured on board this vessel, we learned that the New York Chamber of Commerce--whose leading spirit seemed to be a Mr. Low, one or two of whose ships, if I mistake not, I had burned--was in a glow of indignation. Its resolutions were exceedingly eloquent. This Chamber of Commerce was a sort of debating society, which by no means confined itself to mere commerce, as its name would seem to imply, but undertook to regulate the affairs of the Yankee nation, generally, and its members had consequently become orators. The words "privateer," "pirate," "robbery," and "plunder," and other blood-and-thunder expressions, ran through their resolutions in beautiful profusion. These resolutions were sent to Mr. Seward, and that renowned statesman sat down, forthwith, and wrote a volume of despatches to Mr. Adams, in London, about the naughty things that the "British Pirate" was doing in American waters. The Alabama, said he, was burning everything, right and left, even British property; would the Lion stand it?

Another set of resolutions was sent to Mr. Welles, the Federal Secretary of the Navy, and that old gentleman put all the telegraph wires in motion, leading to the different sea-port towns; and the wires put in motion a number of gunboats which were to hurry off to the banks of Newfoundland and capture the Alabama. Whilst these gunboats were going from New York to cruise among the cod-fishermen and icebergs, the Alabama was jogging along, under easy sail, toward New York. We kept ourselves, all the time, in the track of commerce; what track the gunboats,--some of which only mounted a couple of guns, and would have been very shy of falling in with the Alabama,--took, to look for us, we never knew, as we did not see any of them.

On the day after capturing the Crenshaw, we observed in latitude 39 deg. 47', and longitude 68 deg. 06'. Being near the edge of St. George's Bank, off the coast of New England, we sounded with eighty-five fathoms of line, but got no bottom. Here another gale of wind overtook us; the barometer descending as low as 29.33, at the height of the gale. On the next day, the 28th of October, the weather being still rough, we captured the bark Lauretta, of which the veracious Captain Wells was master, and of which the reader has already had some account. The Lauretta was skirting St. George's Bank, on her way to Madeira and the Mediterranean, and literally ran into our arms. We had no other trouble than to heave her to, with a gun, as she approached, and send a boat on board, and take possession of her; transferring her crew to the Alabama, with as much dispatch as possible, and "robbing" Captain Wells, as he states--by which he means, probably, that we deprived him of his chronometer and nautical instruments; for the mere personal effects of a prisoner, as the reader has already been informed, were never disturbed. We burned the ship.

On the next day, the weather being thick and rainy, and the Alabama being about two hundred miles from New York, we chased and captured the brig Baron de Castine, from Bangor, in Maine, and bound, with a load of lumber, to Cardenas, in the island of Cuba. This vessel being old, and of little value, I released her on ransom-bond, and sent her into New York, with my prisoners, of whom I had now a large number on board. I charged the master of this ship, to give my special thanks to Mr. Low, of the New York Chamber of Commerce, for the complimentary resolutions he had had passed, in regard to the Alabama. The more the enemy abused me, the more I felt complimented, for it is "the galled jade only that winces." There must have been a merry mess in the cabin of the Baron that night, as there were the masters and mates of three burned ships. New York was "all agog" when the Baron arrived, and there was other racing and chasing after the "pirate," as I afterward learned.

The engineer having now reported to me, that we had no more than about four days of fuel on board, I resolved to withdraw from the American coast, run down into the West Indies, to meet my coal ship, and renew my supply. Being uncertain, in the commencement of my career, as to the reception I should meet with, in neutral ports, and fearing that I might have difficulty in procuring coal in the market, I had arranged, with my ever-attentive co-laborer, Captain Bullock, when we parted off Terceira, to have a supply-ship sent out to me, from time to time, as I should indicate to him the rendezvous. The island of Martinique was to be the first rendezvous, and it was thither accordingly that we were now bound. This resolution was taken on the 30th of October, and shaping our course, and making sail accordingly, we soon crossed the southern edge of the Gulf Stream, and were in a comparatively desert track of the ocean. Our sinews were once more relaxed, and we had a few days of the dolce far niente. The weather became fine, as we proceeded southward, and the sailors, throwing aside their woollen garments, were arrayed again in their duck frocks and trousers. Our mornings were spent in putting the ship in order, preparatory to going into port, and in exercising the crew at the battery, and the evenings were given up to amusement. Great inroads had been made, by the continuous bad weather of the Gulf Stream, on both duty and pleasure. Sometimes a week or ten days would elapse, during which it would not be possible to cast loose a heavy gun, for exercise; and evening after evening passed in drenching rain and storm, when not so much as a note on the violin was heard or even a song. The men were, however, cheerful and obedient, were as much excited as ever by the chase and the capture, and were fast becoming a well-disciplined crew. If there was any of that discontent, spoken of by Captain Wells, it was not visible to the eyes of the officers. Our numbers had been considerably increased, by recruits from the enemy's ships, and we now had men enough to man all our guns, which added considerably to our sense of security. The young officers had gained much experience in the handling of their ship, and I began in consequence to sleep more soundly in my cot, at night, when the weather was dark and stormy.

On the 2d of November, when we were scarcely expecting it, we captured another of the enemy's ships. She was descried from the mast-head, about half-past eight in the morning, and we immediately gave chase. It was Sunday, and the muster-hour coming on, we mustered the crew, and read the Articles of War in the midst of the chase. We came up with the stranger about noon, with the United States colors at our peak, and upon firing a gun, the fugitive hoisted the same colors, and hove to. She proved to be the Levi Starbuck, a whaler, out of New Bedford, and bound on a voyage of thirty months, to the Pacific Ocean. Here was another store-ship for us, with plenty of provisions, slops, and small stores. Getting on board from her such articles as we stood in need of, and removing the crew, we burned her about nightfall.

Her New Bedford papers were only four days old, with the latest news from the "seat of war." The two armies were watching each other on the Potomac, and additional gun-boats had been sent "in pursuit of the Alabama." In the meantime, the Alabama was approaching another track of commerce, across which she intended to run, on her way to Martinique--the track of the homeward-bound East India ships of the enemy.

Toward midnight of the 7th of November, we descried a schooner, standing to the southward, to which we gave chase. She had heels, as well as the Alabama, and when day dawned she was still some distance from us, though we had gained on her considerably. But fortune came to her rescue, for very soon, a large ship, looming up on the horizon like a frigate, came in sight, steering to the north-west. She was under all sail, with studding-sails, and sky-scrapers set, and Evans, having been sent for, pronounced her "Yankee." The small craft was probably Yankee, too, but we were like a maiden choosing between lovers--we could not have both--and so we took the biggest prize, as maidens often do in a similar conjuncture. The large ship was standing in our direction, and we had nothing to do, but await her approach. When she came sufficiently near to distinguish our colors, we showed her the stars and stripes, which she was apparently very glad to see, for she began, of her own accord, to shorten sail, as she neared us, evidently with the intention of speaking us, and getting, it might be, a welcome newspaper from "home." The stars and stripes were, by this time, flying from her own peak. She was terribly astonished, as her master afterward confessed, when the jaunty little gun-boat, which he had eyed with so much pleasure, believing her to be as good a Yankee as himself, fired a gun, and hauling down "hate's polluted rag," hoisted, in its stead, the banner of the Southern Republic.

The stranger had not much more to do, in order to surrender himself a prisoner. His studding-sails had already been hauled down, and he now hauled up his courses, and backed his main-yard. We were once more in gentle airs, and a smooth sea; and in a few minutes, the boarding-officer was alongside of him. She proved to be as we had expected, an East India trader. She was the T. B. Wales, of Boston, from Calcutta, for Boston, with a cargo consisting chiefly of jute, linseed, and saltpetre. Of the latter, she had 1700 bags, sufficient to supply our pious Boston brethren, who were fighting for nothing but "grand moral ideas," with a considerable quantity of powder. But for the Wales meeting with the Alabama, it would, probably, have gone into some of the same Yankee mills, which, just before the war broke out, had supplied the Confederate States under the contracts which, as the reader has seen, I had made with them. The jute, which she had on board, was intended as a substitute for cotton, in some of the coarser fabrics; the Boston people being somewhat pressed, at the period, for the Southern staple.

The captain of the Wales, though a Northern man, had very few of the ear-marks of the Yankee skipper about him. He was devoid of the raw-bone angularity which characterizes most of them, and spoke very good English, through his mouth, instead of his nose. His pronunciation and grammar were both good--quite an unusual circumstance among his class. He had been five months on his voyage, and, of course, had not heard of any such craft as the Alabama. He had quite a domestic establishment on board his ship, as, besides his own wife, who had accompanied him on the voyage, there was an ex-United States Consul, with his wife and three small daughters, returning with him, as passengers, to the New England States.

There was no attempt to cover the cargo of the Wales, and I was glad to find, that it was consigned to, and probably owned by, the obnoxious house of the Barings, in Boston, whose ship, the Neapolitan, I had burned, in the Strait of Gibraltar. This British house had rendered itself exceedingly active, during the war, in the Federal interest, importing large quantities of arms, and otherwise aiding the enemy; and I took especial pleasure, therefore, in applying the torch to its property. It was one of the New York "Commercial Advertiser's" pets--being a neutral house, domiciled in an enemy's country, for the purposes of trade. I have not heard what Admiral Milne and the British Minister at Washington did, when they heard of the burning of the Wales, or whether the "Advertiser" invoked, anew, the protection of the British lion. A few hours sufficed to transfer the crew and passengers of the East-Indiaman to the Alabama, and to get on board from her, some spars of which we were in want. It was found, upon measurement, that her main-yard was almost of the precise dimensions of that of the Alabama, and as ours had been carried away in the cyclone of the 16th of October, and had only been fished for temporary use, we got down the yard from the Wales, and brought it on board.

We treated the ladies--our first prisoners of the sex--with all due consideration, of course; but I was forced to restrict them in the matter of baggage and furniture, for the want of room. I permitted them to bring on board their entire wardrobes, of course, without permitting it to be examined, but was forced to consign to the flames some fancy chairs and other articles of East India workmanship, which they seemed to prize very highly. I dare say they thought hard of it, at the time, though, I doubt not, they have long since forgiven me. Both ladies were gentle. The Consul's wife was an Englishwoman, the daughter of a general in the British army, serving in the Mauritius, where her husband had met and married her. She was refined and educated, of course, and her three little daughters were very beautiful children. Mr. George H. Fairchild--for such was her husband's name--though a New-Englander, was, apparently, an unbigoted gentleman, and observed all the gentlemanly proprieties, during his stay on board my ship.

When I was arrested, after the war, by the Administration of President Johnson, in violation of the contract which the Government had made with me, at my surrender, and threatened with a trial, by one of those Military Commissions which have disgraced American civilization, on the trumped-up charge, among others, of cruelty to prisoners, Mr. Fairchild was kind enough to write to me, in prison, and tender himself as a witness in my behalf. In the then state of New England feeling, with all the passions, and especially those of malignity, and hate, running riot through the land, it required moral courage to do this; and I take this opportunity of thanking a New England man, for obeying the instincts of a Christian and a gentleman.

It took us some time to despoil the Wales of such of her spars and rigging as we wanted, and it was near nightfall when we applied the torch to her. We had scarcely turned away from the burning prize, when another sail was discovered, in the fading twilight, but the darkness soon shutting her out from view, it was useless to attempt to chase. The Wales was one of the most useful of my captures. She not only served as a sort of ship-yard, in enabling me to repair the damages I had suffered in the Gulf Stream, but I received eight recruits from her, all of whom were fine, able-bodied seamen. My crew now numbered 110 men--120 being my full complement. I bestowed the ladies, with their husbands, upon the ward-room mess, consigning them to the care of my gallant friend, Kell. Some of the lieutenants were turned out of their state-rooms, for their accommodation, but being carpet knights, as well as knights of the lance, they submitted to the discomfort with becoming grace.

My menage began now to assume quite a domestic air. I had previously captured another interesting prisoner, who was still on board--not having been released on parole. This prisoner was a charming little canary-bird, which had been brought on board from a whaler, in its neat gilded cage. Bartelli had the wonderful art, too, of supplying me with flowers--brought from the shore when this was practicable, and when not practicable, raised in his own tiny pots. When I would turn over in my cot, in the morning, for another nap, in that dim consciousness which precedes awakening, I would listen, in dreamy mood, to the sweet notes of the canary, the pattering of the tiny feet of the children and their gleeful voices over my head; inhaling, the while, the scent of the geranium, or the jessamine, and forget all about war's alarms. "Home, Sweet Home," with all its charms, would cluster around my imagination, and as my slumber deepened, putting reason to rest, and giving free wing to fancy, I would be clasping again the long-absent dear ones to my heart. Bartelli's shake of my cot, and his announcement that it was "seven bells"--half-past seven, which was my hour for rising--would often be a rude dispeller of such fancies, whilst the Fairchilds were on board.

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